WPR11CA171 · Remos GX
Remos GX and Gould Rutan Long EZ · Accident: ground collision before flight
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11CA171
- 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 · Remos GX
- Aircraft type
- Remos GX
- 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
- N386GX
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Arlington Municipal Airport (AWO), Arlington, WATo Renton Municipal Airport (RNT), Renton, 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
- Prior to flight
- 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
Aircraft 2 · Gould Rutan Long EZ
- Aircraft type
- Gould RUTAN
- 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
- N11NL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Arlington Municipal Airport (AWO), Arlington, WATo Arlington Municipal Airport (AWO), Arlington, 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
- Prior to flight
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The experimental Long EZ was taxiing on taxiway A for a planned departure from the non-towered airport. About the same time, a light sport airplane (LSA) was taxiing out of a ramp area on a stub taxiway, towards taxiway A, for a planned departure. According to the Long EZ pilot, he saw the LSA approach from the right and then turned right onto taxiway A. He steered his airplane to the left side of the taxiway in an attempt to avoid the LSA.
According to both persons on board the LSA, as they approached the taxiway, they looked to the right and left, and then proceeded onto taxiway A via a right turn. Shortly after the LSA joined the taxiway centerline, the Long EZ's right vertical stabilizer struck the LSA's left aileron. The LSA's rotating propeller struck the right canard of the Long EZ. The airplanes came to a stop near the edge of taxiway A, about 75 feet beyond the center of the stub taxiway. A chain link fence near the taxiway limited the pilots' ability to see one another until they were close to the taxiway intersection. However, none of the pilots involved reported that the LSA stopped before it turned onto taxiway A.
Subsequent to the accident, the fixed base operator modified their standard operating procedures to require pilots to stop prior to entering taxiway A.
Probable cause
The LSA pilots' failure to stop and to ensure that the taxiway was clear of conflicting traffic before entering.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11CA171
- Event ID
- 20110319X32419
- Case number
- WPR11CA171
- 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: f14c2851a2473d782df787725261e3243036e26e7203b5f12bd2fcad12af45cf; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:18:08.353Z.