GAA18CA319 · Cessna 172 S
Westwind School of Aeronautics Cessna 172 S and Great Lakes 2T1A 2 · Accident: ground collision while taxiing
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA319
- 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
Aircraft 1 · 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
- N786SA
- Operator
- Westwind School of Aeronautics
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF), San Diego, CATo Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT), Phoenix, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 17 years (built 2001)
- 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 · into takeoff position
- 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
Aircraft 2 · Great Lakes 2T1A 2
- Aircraft type
- Great Lakes 2
- 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
- N5762B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF), San Diego, CATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 38 years (built 1980)
- 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 · into takeoff position
- 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
- None
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor, who was on the controls, reported that he and a student taxied for departure. Upon arrival at the departure end of the runway, there were four airplanes ahead of them in a run-up area. He added that the first airplane moved to the hold-short line and that, after he completed the engine run-up, they moved forward to the hold-short line behind the first airplane. The other three airplanes, which were biplanes, remained in the run-up area. After the departure of the first airplane, the instructor told the control tower they were ready for departure, and the tower controller replied to stand by. The tower controller then cleared the three biplanes, which were waiting in the run-up area for takeoff as a flight of three. The second biplane in the flight struck the instructor's airplane's right aileron as it taxied past.
The pilot of the tailwheel-equipped biplane reported that he was the second in the flight of three. He added that the flight had been holding in the run-up area at a 45° angle to complete their run-up checks when the tower controller cleared the flight for takeoff. He began to follow the lead airplane, and his airplane struck the airplane stopped at the hold-short line. He reported that he never saw the stopped airplane until after the impact.
The instructor's airplane sustained substantial damage to the right aileron.
In an interview with the Federal Aviation Administration inspector, the flight instructor reported that he was not aware that the three biplanes were part of a single flight awaiting takeoff clearance. He also reported that he had never flown tailwheel airplanes and was not aware of their limited forward visibility.
The flight instructor and biplane pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with their respective airplanes that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The biplane pilot’s failure to see and avoid the stopped airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA319
- Event ID
- 20180603X15352
- Case number
- GAA18CA319
- 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: 98ae9df7db73bff9014252039b2efdb84aa8f2edf7376c3c59553eb22ce61a9b; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:30:06.880Z.