WPR10CA079 · Curtiss Wright TRAVEL AIR 4000
Curtiss Wright TRAVEL AIR 4000 and Sutherland RON LANCAIR 235 · Accident: ground collision while taxiing
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10CA079
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Curtiss Wright TRAVEL AIR 4000
- Aircraft type
- Curtiss Wright TRAVEL AIR 4000
- 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
- N8700
- Operator
- Smith Richard Charles
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Zamperini Field (TOA), Torrance, CATo Zamperini Field (TOA), Torrance, CA
- 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
- 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
- None
Aircraft 2 · Sutherland RON LANCAIR 235
- Aircraft type
- Sutherland Ron LANCAIR 235
- 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
- N880RS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Zamperini Field (TOA), Torrance, CATo Zamperini Field (TOA), Torrance, CA
- 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
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The Travel Air pilot was taxiing down the 58-foot-wide asphalt lane that stretched between rows of hangar buildings toward a taxiway. Prior to beginning the taxi the pilot had visually checked the lane and had not observed any other aircraft in the lane between his position and the taxiway. The Travel Air is a tailwheel-type configuration, and the pilot was making continuous S-turns to look for obstructions ahead of his position. As he reached the end of the buildings, his propeller collided with the empennage of a stationary Lancair that had been pulled out of the end hangar. The pilot of the Lancair had started his engine and was contacting the Air Traffic Control Tower for a clearance onto the taxiway when the collision occurred. The point of the collision is in a non-movement ramp area not subject to air traffic control separation.
Probable cause
The Travel Air pilot's failure to maintain an adequate visual lookout during taxi.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10CA079
- Event ID
- 20091211X20156
- Case number
- WPR10CA079
- 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, 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: 8432bdd27efdb677cedfc80206d455a8423dfea8144c0ffbd8b32abd78afdab5; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:15:53.729Z.