GAA20CA025 · Cessna 172 S
Paragon Flight Training Cessna 172 S · Accident: aircraft/propeller/rotor contact with person before flight
From Page Field (FMY) to Page Field (FMY)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA20CA025
- 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 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
- N5522S
- Operator
- Paragon Flight Training
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Page Field (FMY), Fort Myers, FLTo Page Field (FMY), Fort Myers, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 5 years (built 2014)
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft/propeller/rotor contact with person
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he performed a preflight inspection at night and started the airplane, but the airplane would not move forward as he attempted to taxi from parking to the runway. The pilot looked out the left window to see if there were wheel chocks, and his passenger exited the right door and checked the right main landing gear wheel for chocks. The passenger subsequently moved to the front of the airplane and attempted to remove the chocks from the nosewheel. The passenger's right hand was struck by the propeller, which resulted in a serious injury. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s and the passenger's improper decision to have the passenger attempt to move a wheel chock while the propeller was turning, which resulted in a serious injury.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA20CA025
- Event ID
- 20191013X12218
- Case number
- GAA20CA025
- 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: local date, investigation status, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2019-10-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 17677b85f78eb2f1c2fcb058c17f30217d8d37d606d8d6ba867a28b050021b2c; retrieved 2026-09-16T10:22:21.161Z.