GAA16CA253 · Cessna 172 S
Civil Air Patrol Cessna 172 S · Accident: ground collision while taxiing
From University of Oklahoma Westheimer Airport (OUN) to Shawnee Regional Airport (SNL)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA253
- 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
Cessna 172 S
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N917CP
- Operator
- Civil Air Patrol
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From University of Oklahoma Westheimer Airport (OUN), Norman, OKTo Shawnee Regional Airport (SNL), Shawnee, OK
- Aircraft age
- About 17 years (built 1999)
- 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 · 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Pole
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, during the taxi from the runway to parking, he made a left turn into his parking space. He reported that he had parked at this location many times before, and that his main concern at the time, was to ensure that he did not run over the rope tie downs on the parking space. During the left turn, although the main landing gear remained on the asphalt, the right wing extended beyond the asphalt, and into the grass area where the right wing struck a light pole. The light pole had been erected about 45 days prior, and was positioned in the grass, about 5 feet away from the asphalt. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing spar.
The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or anomalies with the airplane that would have prevented normal flight operations.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to remain a safe distance from obstacles while taxiing to parking, resulting in the airplane's wing striking a light pole.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA253
- Event ID
- 20160523X65816
- Case number
- GAA16CA253
- 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: c5a9c6289758d00e0bba2c05830f031710d1c89650c56cbf8f2cc7657e4c3ec1; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:25:29.398Z.