DFW08LA055 · Pilatus PC-12/45
Pilatus PC-12/45 · Accident: aircraft/propeller/rotor contact with person while standing
From Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) to Wiley Post Airport (PWA)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW08LA055
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 1
- 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
Pilatus PC-12/45
- Aircraft type
- Pilatus PC-12
- 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
- N398J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX), Phoenix, AZTo Wiley Post Airport (PWA), Oklahoma City, OK
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) operating
- Defining eventThe 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
- Aircraft/propeller/rotor contact with person
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After an uneventful landing at night, the commercial rated pilot taxied the single-engine turbo propeller equipped airplane to a FBO based at the airport. Upon reaching the FBO's dimly lit ramp, a line technician, who was employed by the FBO, used lighted wands to marshal the airplane to a parking spot. When the airplane came to a complete stop, the pilot set the parking brake. As the pilot was initiating the engine shut down procedures, he heard a loud "thud" and felt the engine, propeller, and airplane begin to vibrate. He looked up and saw the line technician rolling on the ramp toward the airplane's left wing tip. Upon exiting the airplane, the pilot and one of the passengers, who was a physician, noted that the line technician was critically wounded and immediately initiated first aid. It was also noted that a set of wheel chocks and the severed sections of the two lighted wands were near the propeller at the front of the airplane. The line technician had received a written warning from his employer approximately three months before the accident for attempting to chock the nose wheel of another airplane while the engines were operating.
Probable cause
The line technician's failure to remain clear of the propeller. A factor was the night lighting conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW08LA055
- Event ID
- 20080107X00027
- Case number
- DFW08LA055
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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, damage. 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: 4088a404877fdfe42d45cbe2eb48f605e02fff8b21ff46082210f9e44d761c31; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:00:15.541Z.