WPR22LA042 · Phoenix Air U-15 PHOENIX
Phoenix Air U-15 PHOENIX · Accident: ground collision while taxiing
From French Valley Airport (F70) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR22LA042
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
Phoenix Air U-15 PHOENIX
- Aircraft type
- Phoenix Air U-15
- Category
- Glider
- 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
- N44DY
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From French Valley Airport (F70), Murrieta, CATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 11 years (built 2010)
- 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 · from runway
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot in the tailwheel equipped glider reported that, after landing, he taxied off the runway onto a ramp area. A business jet was being towed by a tug on the taxiway he normally used to get to his hangar. The ground controller issued the pilot instructions to pass by the jet and turn right. The tail-low configuration of the glider made the pilot’s visibility limited while taxiing. During the turn, the glider’s right wing collided with an airport sign, substantially damaging the composite structure. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the glider that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain distance with an airport sign while taxiing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR22LA042
- Event ID
- 20211119104275
- Case number
- WPR22LA042
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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, coordinates, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2021-11-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 827617ade089909bad7714f2a8aaa3a0716afa58639b2cd4c52d9e5d8a6ea4e4; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:46:06.926Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. F70 is French Valley Airport at Murrieta, California; the city name is missing an 'r' in the record, and other records in the same release spell it Murrieta.