CEN10LA422 · Aero Commander S2R
Red Willow Aviation Spraying Aero Commander S2R · Accident: ground collision while taxiing
From McCook Ben Nelson Regional Airport (MCK) to McCook Ben Nelson Regional Airport (MCK)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10LA422
- 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
Aero Commander S2R
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander S2
- 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
- N51AR
- Operator
- Red Willow Aviation Spraying
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McCook Ben Nelson Regional Airport (MCK), McCook, NETo McCook Ben Nelson Regional Airport (MCK), McCook, NE
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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 pilot of a tailwheel-equipped agricultural airplane had returned from a local flight and was refueling and reloading with the propeller operating. During that time, a second airplane arrived and parked on the airport ramp directly in front of the agricultural airplane. The pilot of the agricultural airplane completed refueling and reloading and began to taxi for takeoff. He made no turns and taxied straight ahead. Due to the tailwheel configuration of the airplane, the pilot had limited visibility when taxiing. The agricultural airplane taxied directly into the parked and unoccupied airplane, the operating propeller impacted that airplane, and both airplanes were immediately engulfed in fire. The pilot evacuated unassisted and was seriously injured. Both airplanes were substantially damaged by fire.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate visual lookout during taxi, which resulted in a collision with a parked airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10LA422
- Event ID
- 20100722X52126
- Case number
- CEN10LA422
- 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: 90f3cb4a09e0dd848f2f61c197711527dcb3735038b30d195634b9c4dac2d86a; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:44:37.645Z.