Ameriflight Piper PA 31-350 accident
Piper PA 31-350 · Accident: ground collision while taxiing
From Crater Lake-Klamath Regional Airport (LMT) to Portland International Airport (PDX)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA051
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Piper PA 31-350
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N555RG
- Operator
- Ameriflight
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Crater Lake-Klamath Regional Airport (LMT), Klamath Falls, ORTo Portland International Airport (PDX), Portland, OR
- Aircraft age
- About 42 years (built 1973)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 · from 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that after landing during dark rainy night conditions, he exited the runway on taxiway E and contacted the ground controller. The controller instructed the pilot to taxi via E and E4 to the ramp. The pilot further reported that he proceeded to taxi south on E and made a left turn onto E4. On E4 the airplane's left wing was struck by a fuel truck. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing.
The pilot reported that there were no pre-impact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
According to the local Police Department report, the fuel truck driver reported that he was driving on the south perimeter road and came to a stop at the stop sign for about 15 seconds. The driver continued to cross the intersection at about 5 miles per hour, and drove into the airplane. The fuel truck driver reported that he did not see the airplane.
Probable cause
The failure of the fuel truck driver to see and avoid the taxiing airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA051
- Event ID
- 20151117X75807
- Case number
- GAA16CA051
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2015-11-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ba89a21bd35ca3befe50beb20ecb521ce313f61cf573cefa535d31f129ebdf9f; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:58:21.831Z.