GAA18CA208 · Piper Aircraft Inc PA 28 181
CAE Oxford Aviation Academy Phoenix Piper Aircraft Inc PA 28 181 · Accident: ground collision while taxiing
From Falcon Field (FFZ) to Ryan Field (RYN)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA208
- 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
Piper Aircraft Inc PA 28 181
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N4400W
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Falcon Field (FFZ), Mesa, AZTo Ryan Field (RYN), Tucson, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 5 years (built 2013)
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft handling/service
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot reported that, while taxiing to park, he aligned the airplane with the parking spot, added power to make the turn, and then heard a "boom." He shut the engine down and examined the airplane and found that the left wing had hit a pole.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left-wing rear spar.
The flight safety officer for the operator reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The safety officer further reported that the company policy was to shut down the airplane on the yellow taxiway centerline before pushing the airplane back into the parking spot. He added that, after interviewing other flight crews, he learned that flight instructors had been demonstrating incorrect parking methods to students, including the student who taxied into the pole.
Probable cause
The student pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from a stationary pole while parking.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA208
- Event ID
- 20180410X75856
- Case number
- GAA18CA208
- 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: 94780dc2570a52f449d441b5805159f20a20e89af2d15e48c4ffa3aee20b119a; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:48:43.187Z.