WPR09CA416 · Morgan James E MORGAN RV6
Morgan James E MORGAN RV6 · Accident: ground collision while taxiing
From Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE) to Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09CA416
- 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
Morgan James E MORGAN RV6
- Aircraft type
- Morgan James MORGAN RV6
- 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
- N116JM
- Operator
- Morgan James e
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE), Everett, WATo Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE), Everett, WA
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Pole
- 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 handling/service
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot started the airplane and began to taxi between two rows of hangars. As he approached the east-west taxiway at the end of the rows, he stopped to contact ground control and look at the windsock. After several minutes, ground control cleared him to taxi to runway 16L. He began to taxi toward the east-west taxiway, and was about to start making S-turns to look for obstacles. After traveling 40-60 feet, the propeller, right wing, and right landing gear contacted poles surrounding a fire hydrant. The right wing sustained substantial damage. The pilot noted that the airplane had conventional landing gear and he could not see the hydrant or surrounding poles over its nose. He also indicated that there was no taxi stripe from between the hangars to the east-west taxiway that would lead a pilot away from the poles.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from objects during taxi. Contributing to the accident was the inadequate marking of the taxiway and obstacles.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09CA416
- Event ID
- 20090825X64536
- Case number
- WPR09CA416
- 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. 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: 638b87045ee33d4b80b196493d3e72f40f99945fce1abc80caa5ed331e8691dc; retrieved 2026-09-15T12:50:38.196Z.