ERA20CA243 · Piper PA28 181
Piper PA28 181 · Accident: ground collision while taxiing
From Greene County Regional Airport (K3J7) to Greenwood County Airport (GRD)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA20CA243
- 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 PA28 181
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA28
- 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
- N6958J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Greene County Regional Airport (K3J7), Greensboro, GATo Greenwood County Airport (GRD), Greenwood, SC
- Aircraft age
- About 44 years (built 1976)
- 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 structures
- 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
According to the student pilot, he landed and taxied back on the east/west parallel taxiway for a subsequent departure on the same runway to the west. The taxiway traversed an open parking ramp and as the airplane transitioned onto the ramp, an unidentified marshaller directed the airplane down a north/south taxiway that circumnavigated hangars on the south side of the airport. According to the pilot, airplanes were parked along both sides with many parked across the double-yellow taxiway edge lines and into the taxiway object-free movement area.
The student pilot said he endeavored to keep the nose wheel on the taxiway centerline as he'd been taught to maintain clearance. While taxiing, the left wing of the airplane contacted a parked airplane, pivoted around the contact point, and struck the tail with the turning propeller. The accident airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing.
The pilot reported that there were no mechanical deficiencies with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
According to airport personnel, there was overwhelming response to a breakfast fly-in that morning that was neither NOTAMed nor anticipated, and overflow parking was not easily accommodated due to heavy rains and heavily soaked infield areas. Photos taken immediately after the accident depicted several airplanes parked over the double-yellow taxiway edge lines and into the taxiway object-free movement area.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate clearance from a parked airplane while taxiing. Contributing to the accident was the parked airplane's position over the double-yellow taxiway edge lines and into the taxiway object-free movement area.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA20CA243
- Event ID
- 20200709X40854
- Case number
- ERA20CA243
- 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: 8966aad60721378e649c6e45b2a5957fba2e26ec2411c7153ff4825550b07040; retrieved 2026-09-16T12:04:58.310Z.