WPR15LA154 · Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA 20 C1
Amval Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA 20 C1 and Continental Aviation Cessna 150M M · Accident: ground collision while taxiing
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR15LA154
- 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 · Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA 20 C1
- Aircraft type
- Diamond DA-20
- 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
- N309EF
- Operator
- Amval
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Van Nuys Airport (VNY), Van Nuys, CATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 11 years (built 2004)
- 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
- 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
- Minor
Aircraft 2 · Cessna 150M M
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 150
- 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
- N6211K
- Operator
- Continental Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Van Nuys Airport (VNY), Van Nuys, CATo Camarillo International Airport (KCMA), Camarillo, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 40 years (built 1975)
- 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
- 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
A Cessna 150M and a Diamond DA20 collided on the ground during taxi operations. The student pilot of the Diamond received clearance from the ground controller to taxi to the run-up area for runway 16R via taxiway A1. The Diamond student reported that he stopped and looked in both directions before slowly proceeding left onto taxiway A (not A1 as instructed), at which point he observed the Cessna moving to his left around a jet on taxiway A and approaching his position. The Diamond student stopped to see what the Cessna pilot was going to do, and his airplane was then struck by the Cessna.
The Cessna pilot reported that, while taxiing on taxiway A as he approached A1, he observed an airplane at his 10-o'clock position, which appeared to be entering his path. The Cessna pilot applied the brakes but was unable to avoid striking the Diamond. The Diamond sustained damage to both propeller blades, and the Cessna sustained substantial damage to the leading edge of the left wing.
A review of airport surveillance video showed the Cessna taxiing on taxiway A and converging with the Diamond before the collision. The surveillance video and on-site documentation of the area did not reveal any obstructions that would have prevented the pilots from seeing and avoiding the other airplane before the collision.
Review of radio transmissions revealed that both pilots received and acknowledged clearance instructions from ground control; however, neither pilot was given information about the other aircraft's position on the taxiway. Seventeen seconds before the collision occurred, the ground controller began issuing instructions to another aircraft pilot; this transmission continued as the collision occurred. It is likely that the ground controller's attention was diverted to issuing instructions to the other aircraft pilot, which led to his failure to notify the accident pilots about the presence of the other airplane on the taxiway.
Probable cause
Both pilots' failure to see and avoid each other, which resulted in an on-ground collision while taxiing. Contributing to the accident was the ground controller's failure to notify either pilot about the presence of the other airplane on the taxiway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR15LA154
- Event ID
- 20150430X91224
- Case number
- WPR15LA154
- 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: e20a04d159180e49dc41830a6e93c8164a20fd72bd0a644e9beb3538754aeb4e; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:23:59.461Z.