NYC07LA209 · North American SNJ-2
North American SNJ-2 and North American SNJ-2 · Accident: collision between aircraft (not in flight) while taxiing
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC07LA209
- 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
Aircraft 1 · North American SNJ-2
- Aircraft type
- North American SNJ-2
- 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
- N62382
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Republic Airport (FRG), Farmingdale, NYTo Republic Airport (FRG)
- 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
- Collision between aircraft (not in flight)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · North American SNJ-2
- Aircraft type
- North American SNJ-2
- 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
- N52033
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Republic Airport (FRG), Farmingdale, NYTo Republic Airport (FRG)
- 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
- Collision between aircraft (not in flight)
- 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 › Visual lookout, inadequate
- Pilot of other aircraft › Visual lookout, 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 accident airplanes were operating as part of a five airplane, aerial advertising formation flight. After performing the pretaxi checks, the airplanes in the formation began to taxi. While still in the parking spot, the pilot of airplane 5 realized that he had forgot to put in his earplugs, so he removed his helmet to put them in. After replacing his helmet, he looked up and saw what he thought was airplane 4, whom he was to follow, was no longer in its parking spot, and that the other airplanes had taxied relatively far down the taxiway. The pilot of airplane 5 then taxied out of the parking spot to join the formation and struck the left wing of the number 4 airplane. The pilot stated that during the brief time that he was putting in his ear plugs, he "lost situational awareness."
Probable cause
The number 5 airplane pilot's inadequate visual lookout.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC07LA209
- Event ID
- 20070917X01400
- Case number
- NYC07LA209
- 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: ee599fa90854521c5d6b185600969939414c1c2416af9c0f091d217a82de682d; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:27:53.103Z.