DEN06CA078 · Aviat A-1A
Aviat A-1A · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From Centennial Airport (APA) to Centennial Airport (APA)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN06CA078
- 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
Aviat A-1A
- Aircraft type
- Aviat A-1
- 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
- N153C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Centennial Airport (APA), Englewood, COTo Centennial Airport (APA)
- 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 · from 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot took off on the wrong runway. After flying around the airport for about 30 minutes, he was given clearance to land. He landed on the wrong runway. Tower personnel noticed the airplane making "doughnuts" (taxiing in circles). Sheriff's deputies found the pilot was found wandering around the tarmac. They said he appeared to be intoxicated. He was transported by ambulance to a nearby hospital. A sheriff's deputy who interviewed the pilot said his eyes were "red, watery, and bloodshot." He also detected a "strong odor of alcohol on his breath." The pilot said he did not start drinking until after he had landed. Examination of the airplane revealed substantial damage. The pilot said it was dark when he landed, and he was "taxiing too fast, over controlling, and not watching where he was going." Outside and near the hangar, a displaced refuse dumpster bore scratches and paint transfer marks similar in color as that of the airplane.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control while taxiing from landing, resulting in a collision with a refuse dumpster. A contributing factor was his physical impairment by alcohol.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN06CA078
- Event ID
- 20060608X00714
- Case number
- DEN06CA078
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2006-05-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8bc370b1b328ec430b402d0155f1ab637e8742c04e85a2f24d56f4ed21d57e03; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:55:23.282Z.