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WPR11CA191 · Cessna 172N

6 Apr 2011 · Snohomish, WA, United States

Cessna 172N · Accident while taxiing

From Harvey Field (S43) to Harvey Field (S43)

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Event

NTSB case
WPR11CA191
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

Cessna 172N

Aircraft type
Cessna 172
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
N492SF
Operator
R. Desselle
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Harvey Field (S43), Snohomish, WATo Harvey Field (S43), Snohomish, 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
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
Miscellaneous/other
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 › Task performance

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilot reported that while taxiing to the parking area after landing, he noticed that the steering became difficult. He added power and pulled back on the control yoke, noting that the aircraft movement became smooth. As he initiated a right turn to the parking area, the airplane suddenly moved to the left and the left wing struck a hangar. The left wing sustained structural damage. He further reported that following the collision, he turned off the engine, exited the airplane, and noticed that the nose wheel tire was flat. The pilot reported that there were no additional mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.

Probable cause

The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from a hangar while taxiing.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record WPR11CA191
Event ID
20110407X81606
Case number
WPR11CA191
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: e2d9de35d490f990d1660ca5a84299822166268e23251ba62c7dd0eb69b8c9ee; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:01:32.366Z.