LAX05CA230 · Piper PA-28-161
International Airline Training Academy Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From Ryan Field (RYN) to Casa Grande Municipal Airport (CGZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX05CA230
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28-161
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N9886K
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ryan Field (RYN), Tucson, AZTo Casa Grande Municipal Airport (CGZ), Casa Grande, AZ
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Taxi · to runway
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- On ground/water collision with object
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Dual student › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane collided with a fuel truck during taxi to the runway for takeoff. The certified flight instructor (CFI) noticed a fuel truck to the left and pointed it out to the student pilot, who had the controls. During the taxi, another student, who was in the back seat, asked the CFI to explain how to determine the magnetic deviation column of the visual flight rules flight plan form. The CFI stated that during his explanation, both he and the student in the back of the airplane were looking only at the compass card. At that time, the airplane's right wing struck the front of the fuel truck. The CFI then took the controls and applied full brakes. In spite of the corrective action, the momentum of the collision swung the airplane into the side of the truck. The CFI shutdown the engine and turned off the battery. The pilot reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane.
Probable cause
the student pilot's failure to maintain clearance from a fuel truck, and the flight instructor's inadequate supervision.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX05CA230
- Event ID
- 20050811X01229
- Case number
- LAX05CA230
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9bba6dd2b1d9123e760f719208113eec2e1fb8e1d4fe3e572643b5e85185b307; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:39:44.308Z.