Air Southeast Piper PA-31-350 accident
Piper PA-31-350 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From Tuscaloosa National Airport (KTCL) to Cobb County International Airport-McCollum Field (KRYY)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's aircraft involved. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA08CA012
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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-31-350 Narrative disagrees
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N980JH
- Operator
- Air Southeast
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tuscaloosa National Airport (KTCL), Tuscaloosa, ALTo Cobb County International Airport-McCollum Field (KRYY), Marietta, GA
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, 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 Piper pilot stated he received his instrument flight rules clearance from ground control, and was cleared to taxiway Foxtrot and Alpha en-route to runway 04 for takeoff. He taxied slowly on the taxiway centerline using the taxi and landing lights. The pilot noticed a parked airplane to his right and applied brakes. The airplane yawed to the left, and the right wing of the airplane collided with the left side of the fuselage of a parked Cessna Citation. The pilot stopped the airplane, notified ground control that he had collided with another airplane, and performed an engine shut down. The pilot exited the airplane and determined that both airplanes had received substantial damage.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain a visual look out while taxing resulting in an on-ground collision with a parked airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA08CA012
- Event ID
- 20071109X01775
- Case number
- MIA08CA012
- 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 2007-11-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 815f44e40587ac19def2216846c88be3a16c7dff430fdb153decca7c0ea06dac; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:40:42.499Z.