Corporate Air Flight 8974
Cessna 208 B and Cessna 172 S · Accident: ground collision while taxiing
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC20LA003
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 208 B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 208
- 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
- N926FE
- Operator
- Corporate Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL), Honolulu, HITo Lihue Airport (LIH), Lihue, HI
- Aircraft age
- About 32 years (built 1987)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Aircraft 2 · 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
- N274MM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL), Honolulu, HITo Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL), Honolulu, HI
- Aircraft age
- About 16 years (built 2003)
- 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
- 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 systems
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of a Cessna 208B airplane reported that, during taxi to the runway for departure, his airplane was positioned approximately 50 ft behind another airplane holding for departure. He added that, he set the condition lever at low idle, and the power lever was set all the way aft to idle. He said he then set the parking brake before diverting his attention to inside of the airplane. Shortly after, he was startled by a noise and vibration, looked up, and realized his airplane had taxied into the airplane in front of him. A postaccident examination of the Cessna 208B by a Federal Aviation Administration airworthiness inspector revealed no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the brake system that would have precluded normal operation. Given the absence of any mechanical issues with the Cessna 208B's brake system, it is likely the pilot inadvertently failed to set the parking brake before diverting his attention inside the airplane, and the airplane subsequently collided with the airplane ahead.
Probable cause
The pilot of the Cessna's failure to set the parking brake before diverting his attention inside the airplane, which resulted in his airplane colliding with the airplane ahead of it on the taxiway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC20LA003
- Event ID
- 20191104X32212
- Case number
- ANC20LA003
- 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. 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: c5eedeb1917b6cf71474c2a77d5eace0ffe40fbe23f3f6f05a50fe8699dbc1bd; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:33:45.202Z.