WPR23LA072 · Cessna 441
Lyddon Aero Center Cessna 441 · Accident: ground collision before flight
From Liberal Mid-America Regional Airport (KLBL) to Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport (KLBB)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR23LA072
- 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
Cessna 441
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 441
- 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
- N253SB
- Operator
- Lyddon Aero Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Liberal Mid-America Regional Airport (KLBL), Liberal, KSTo Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport (KLBB), Lubbock, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 40 years (built 1982)
- 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
- 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 power plant
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- 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
The pilot of the multiengine airplane reported that, he had preflighted the airplane about 2 hours before his intended departure and asked ground crew to reposition the airplane. When the pilot was ready for departure, he reported that he did not do another preflight, but only walked around the nose of the airplane to get to the entrance door. After he started both engines, the airplane would not taxi forward. The pilot reported that he thought that he set the brakes, reduced both engines to an idle power setting, and exited the airplane. The pilot observed a chock on the airplane’s nosewheel, and after he removed the chock, the airplane began to move forward. He attempted to reboard the unoccupied airplane, however, was unable to and the airplane subsequently collided with a hangar. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate preflight inspection, failure to set the parking brake, and his decision to exit the airplane with engines running to remove a wheel chock, resulting in the airplane’s unintended movement and subsequent collision with a hangar.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR23LA072
- Event ID
- 20221220106480
- Case number
- WPR23LA072
- 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, cause areas. 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: f867b7af62676b2ca19f7848b7b31d06a64341d51278eb53dbcbedd60ceae2c6; retrieved 2026-09-16T16:37:09.356Z.