GAA16CA005 · Raytheon Aircraft Company A36 UNDESIGNAT
Raytheon Aircraft Company A36 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: ground collision while taxiing
From Palo Alto Airport (PAO) to Monterey Regional Airport (MRY)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA005
- 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
Raytheon Aircraft Company A36 UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N53WW
- Operator
- Steven G. John · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palo Alto Airport (PAO), Palo Alto, CATo Monterey Regional Airport (MRY), Monterey, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 13 years (built 2002)
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that after landing, while taxiing to his hangar at night, he struck a distance remaining sign. He reported that all of the runway and taxiway lights were inoperative at the time he impacted the sign. The pilot also reported that the airplane landing and taxi lights were inoperative. When asked, the pilot could not recall if the airplane landing and taxi lights were operative during the preflight which he affirms was conducted.
After the impact, the pilot continued to his hangar, secured the airplane, and contacted the airport manager the following morning. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing.
The runway and taxiway lights were inoperative at the time of the accident, but the appropriate NOTAM had been issued, and the information was available to the pilot.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to see and avoid runway signage during taxi after landing, resulting in a collision and substantial damage to the left wing of the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA005
- Event ID
- 20151006X85826
- Case number
- GAA16CA005
- 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 2015-10-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b64e88c382790ba9ea65b9fafd1d319de955e7b1fc5851b26c9996d4bf99ca55; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:51:57.156Z.