WPR09IA128 · Cessna 172H
Cessna 172H · Incident: propeller/jet/rotor blast or suction while taxiing
From Tucson International Airport (TUS) to Tucson International Airport (TUS)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09IA128
- 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
- Incident
- 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 172H
- 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
- N1408F
- Operator
- Sonoran Wings
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tucson International Airport (TUS), Tucson, AZTo Tucson International Airport (TUS), Tucson, AZ
- 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
- 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
- Propeller/jet/rotor blast or suction
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Following an uneventful landing, the student pilot and flight instructor were cleared to taxi the Cessna 172H to the ramp. While taxiing on a taxiway, parallel to an active runway, the flight instructor and student pilot observed a McDonnell Douglas MD-80 transport category airplane holding short of the runway. As the Cessna 172H neared the MD-80's position, the student pilot applied aileron control inputs for possible jet blast and deviated away from the MD-80, towards the inner ramp area. The flight instructor advised the student pilot to stop the airplane due to the MD-80 being positioned "farther back from the hold short line of 11L than initially thought and the presence of a Boeing 757 parked in the inner ramp area." As the Cessna 172H slowed to a stop, the MD-80 "increased engine thrust" to taxi onto the runway. Subsequently, the MD-80’s jet blast tipped the Cessna 172H over onto its right wing, which resulted in minor damage to the outboard wingtip. The tower controller reported that he began to clear the MD-80 for takeoff as he scanned the active runway to ensure all crossing aircraft were clear. The controller then "looked back” and saw the Cessna 172H taxiing behind the MD-80. The controller stated that he stopped issuing the takeoff clearance, however the MD-80 had already powered up.
Probable cause
The flight instructor’s inadequate situational awareness while taxiing that led to an encounter with jet blast.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09IA128
- Event ID
- 20090223X64314
- Case number
- WPR09IA128
- 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: 82929217ffeecb97001fe7a7209b28f8d91dbf5184b66545e06f1ac71c6239fa; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:46:40.414Z.