GAA15CA262 · Aero Commander 500 B
Vanarsdale Air Service Aero Commander 500 B · Accident: runway incursion (vehicle, aircraft or person) during takeoff
From Columbia Gorge Regional Airport (DLS) to Columbia Gorge Regional Airport (DLS)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA15CA262
- 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
- Government
- 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
Aero Commander 500 B
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander 500
- 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
- N1010F
- Operator
- Vanarsdale Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Columbia Gorge Regional Airport (DLS), The Dalles, ORTo Columbia Gorge Regional Airport (DLS), The Dalles, OR
- Aircraft age
- About 51 years (built 1964)
- 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Runway incursion (vehicle, aircraft or person)
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, during the takeoff roll, a vehicle entered the runway and he immediately pulled back on the yoke in order to climb and avoid the vehicle. The pilot reported that as the airplane began to rotate, he simultaneously retracted the landing gear, and he felt a "bump" before the airplane lifted off of the runway. The airplane ascended over the incursion vehicle and the pilot avoided a collision.
The pilot reported that during the post-flight inspection he checked the landing gear to inspect for damage and he did not find any deficiencies. However, during a subsequent preflight inspection by another crew, it was noticed that the lower aft fuselage was damaged. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the bottom aft fuselage longerons and stringers.
The pilot reported that there were no mechanical failures or anomalies prior to or during the flight that would have prevented normal operation.
Probable cause
A motor vehicle's runway incursion causing the premature rotation of the departing airplane, which resulted in a tail strike.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA15CA262
- Event ID
- 20150917X72641
- Case number
- GAA15CA262
- 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: 878c90a83d58972b83c4b9f1c7676e0be41f07dd0c9143af46e31061feeee8ad; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:47:09.873Z.