WPR11CA084 · Piper PA-28-181
Bird Acquisition Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) while taxiing
From Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT) to Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11CA084
- 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
Piper PA-28-181
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N418PA
- Operator
- Bird Acquisition
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT), Phoenix, AZTo Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT), Phoenix, 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 · from 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After landing, the student pilot was cleared to taxi to the ramp area at his flight school. The student pilot stated that he was taxiing along the taxiway centerline and nearing the ramp area when he observed an airplane holding at an adjacent ramp area. He said that while taxiing in front of the airplane he did not think there was enough room to safely pass, so he maneuvered his airplane to the right to avoid the other airplane. After passing the airplane, the right wing tip hit a parked fuel truck. The airplane yawed to the right, contacted two other parked trucks, and came to a stop. The damage was reported to the NTSB approximately one month after the accident, following the identification of structural damage to the right wing leading edge and rear carry through spar.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to maintain clearance from obstacles while taxiing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11CA084
- Event ID
- 20110104X44845
- Case number
- WPR11CA084
- 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: 5ecfef4caf0046f8a781a298e3c4895f5e87e2630144ec41e869ea6fe1852c32; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:39:47.107Z.