Multi-Aero Cessna 208 B accident
Cessna 208 B · Accident: ground handling event before flight
From Fort Dodge Regional Airport (FOD) to St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA308
- 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
Cessna 208 B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 208
- 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
- N750Z
- Operator
- Multi Aero
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Dodge Regional Airport (FOD), Fort Dodge, IATo St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL), ST LOUIS, MO
- Aircraft age
- About 12 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 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
- Prior to flight
- 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 handling event
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft handling/service
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
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 in command reported that during the loading of the seventh and final passenger, the airplane tipped onto its tail and impacted the ramp surface. He further reported that the tail stand was not installed and neither he nor the co-pilot noticed the omission before passenger loading began.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board Accident/ Incident report form 6120.1 submitted by the operator; after a review of pictures sent to company maintenance, no "major damage" was visually identified, the airplane was released for service, and the flight crew completed the revenue flight. After the airplane reached a company domicile, the airplane was "grounded" after a further visual inspection revealed substantial damage to the aft bulkhead.
The pilot did not report any mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The flight crew's failure to install the tail stand prior to passenger boarding, which resulted in a tail strike.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA308
- Event ID
- 20160613X45543
- Case number
- GAA16CA308
- 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: a60f4e79fd4215c2e1e821c9201b212789fc48d24517ef1f99f7c106662c66cb; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:30:15.880Z.