CEN12CA017 · Learjet Inc 60
Mercer Air Learjet Inc 60 · Accident while taxiing
From Purdue University Airport (LAF) to King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12CA017
- 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
Learjet Inc 60
- Aircraft type
- Learjet 60
- 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
- N64MG
- Operator
- Mercer Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Purdue University Airport (LAF), Lafayette, INTo King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI), Seattle, 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 · 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
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he was taxiing from the ramp area with the taxi lights on. He said that the edge of the ramp was not marked, and before he could complete a turn, the nosewheel departed the pavement. He attempted to taxi across the grass area to the parallel taxiway about 50 feet from the ramp. However, the airplane struck a drainage ditch located between the ramp and the taxiway, which caused substantial damage to the delta fins on the underside of the aft fuselage. The pilot said that there were no mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane. He said that the ramp was poorly illuminated and the high overcast clouds combined to create "very dark" lighting conditions.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to taxi the airplane across an unpaved area after the nosewheel inadvertently departed the ramp pavement.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12CA017
- Event ID
- 20111014X02944
- Case number
- CEN12CA017
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2011-10-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ff0d1b71f0432c4bff1977bd5cd1b8a5ceddb64635e5bfff7eba448386a04179; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:50:38.030Z.