Pacific Air Charters Piper PA-31-350 accident
Piper PA-31-350 · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) while taxiing
From PNL · Honolulu, HI to Lihue Airport (LIH)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10LA189
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Piper PA-31-350
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N61384
- Operator
- Pacific Air Charters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From PNL · Honolulu, HITo Lihue Airport (LIH), Lihue, HI
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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 pilot reported that he was taxing to the runway when his airplane collided with an unoccupied, parked airplane. A witness observed the accident and approached the pilot shortly after the collision to render aid. He queried the pilot as to what had happened. The pilot stated that he was not paying attention and was occupied with adjusting radios and instruments. A Federal Aviation Administration inspector who responded to the accident site reported that the airplane left two skid marks, which appeared to be a result of hard braking.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from a parked airplane during taxi due to his inadequate visual lookout.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10LA189
- Event ID
- 20100405X33651
- Case number
- WPR10LA189
- 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: 1e3150ad4d46563bb3739a0718dbe47a61233f637f3c3c57b1b02b0213c4a1ba; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:49:09.042Z.