DFW08CA154 · Cessna 172M
Wright Flyers Aviation Cessna 172M · Accident: ground collision while taxiing
From San Antonio International Airport (SAT) to Kimble County Airport (JCT)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW08CA154
- 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
Cessna 172M
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N9144H
- Operator
- Wright Flyers Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Antonio International Airport (SAT), San Antonio, TXTo Kimble County Airport (JCT), Junction, TX
- 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
- 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
- Ground collision
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
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 was taxiing from the pilot school ramp and was about to depart on a solo long cross country flight when the airport ground controller called him on the radio. The pilot became distracted while taxiing and failed to notice the 2,000 gallon aviation gasoline refueling truck in front of him and collided with the right rear of the refueling truck. The impact forces of the right wing of the airplane striking the refueling truck spun the airplane to the right and the airplane's propeller struck the refueling truck causing substantial damage to the right wing and damage to the rear bumper and main storage tank of the refueling truck. The pilot was able to shut down the engine before the propeller ruptured the tank containing the aviation gasoline. There was no post crash fire and the pilot was not injured.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from an object while taxiing. Contributing to the accident were the pilot's diverted attention and a vehicle.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW08CA154
- Event ID
- 20080801X01141
- Case number
- DFW08CA154
- 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. 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: 5974f6c164b759c4569d61bd93f7b11418efc089b14b7926fa63965645cd32eb; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:58:12.618Z.