GAA17CA520 · Cessna 680
NetJets Aviation Cessna 680 · Accident: ground handling event while standing
From John Murtha Johnstown Cambria County Airport (JST) to Wilmington Airport (ILG)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA520
- 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 680
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 680
- 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
- N378QS
- Operator
- Netjets Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John Murtha Johnstown Cambria County Airport (JST), Johnstown, PATo Wilmington Airport (ILG), Wilmington, DE
- Aircraft age
- About 11 years (built 2006)
- 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 Subpart K: Fractional
- 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
- Standing
- 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
- None
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Miscellaneous
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The director of aviation safety for the operator reported that, after landing, while parked at the ramp, the pilot-in-command exited the flight deck to open the cabin door. He added that the pilot "found the lead passenger standing in front of the main cabin door waiting to exit the aircraft." He further added that "…[the pilot] was able to open the door from this position, but did not have room to exit the aircraft ahead of the passenger," and as the passenger started down the airplane's air stairs, her foot slipped, she landed on her knees, and she caught her balance by grabbing onto the hand rails.
A subsequent medical examination revealed that the passenger had broken her ankle.
The director of aviation safety reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The passenger’s inadvertent slip on the airplane's air stairs during deplaning, which resulted in a broken ankle.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA520
- Event ID
- 20170906X62240
- Case number
- GAA17CA520
- 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, damage. 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: a1d51fb58b7cb3d713001cdc5dd090de8bb24f8f82d210c8e5664bbda297bcca; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:48:15.535Z.