CEN19TA196 · Aeronca 65 C
Aeronca 65 C · Accident: ground collision while taxiing
From Gilliam Airport (LA54) to Gilliam Airport (LA54)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19TA196
- 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
Aeronca 65 C
- Aircraft type
- Aeronca 65
- 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
- N22173
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gilliam Airport (LA54), Gilliam, LATo Gilliam Airport (LA54), Gilliam, LA
- Aircraft age
- About 80 years (built 1939)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Operating environment
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the private pilot, he was practicing stop-and-go landings, and after the second landing, he taxied the airplane back to the east end to prepare for a third takeoff. While making a wide right turn, he was looking in the direction of the turn and failed to see an estimated 4 1/2-ft-tall utility pole. The left-wing lift strut contacted the pole and separated from the fuselage at the lower attachment point. The pilot stated that there were no markings or warnings placed nearby, which allowed the dark-colored pole to blend into the background. Following the accident, the National Transportation Safety Board investigator-in-charge contacted the airport owner who agreed to paint the pole to make it more visible to prevent a reoccurrence.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to see and avoid a dark-colored utility pole while taxiing for takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19TA196
- Event ID
- 20190702X24138
- Case number
- CEN19TA196
- 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: 4c8f5cb5570ead8f9e6cd0197155f68ee93b7d0e5efae77563309d699ad391ac; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:21:28.337Z.