CEN23LA103 · Cessna 425
Pegasus Royalty Group Cessna 425 · Accident: loss of control on ground while taxiing
From Chandler Municipal Airport (CHD) to Bismarck Municipal Airport (BIS)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN23LA103
- 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 425
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 425
- 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
- N425Z
- Operator
- Pegasus Royalty Group
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chandler Municipal Airport (CHD), Chandler, AZTo Bismarck Municipal Airport (BIS), Bismarck, ND
- Aircraft age
- About 40 years (built 1983)
- 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
- Loss of control on ground
- 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
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot taxied to the ramp after an uneventful flight. After moving the throttles toward the ground idle position while in front of the marshaller, the airplane turned left, and the pilot observed that the right brake was inoperative. He attempted to stop the airplane by placing both propeller levers to the feather position and subsequently moved both throttles toward the reverse (beta) position. The airplane continued forward and struck a hangar, which resulted in substantial damaged to the left wing. Postaccident examination of the braking system revealed the brake master cylinders were nearly empty of brake fluid, with no leaks observed. The pilot, who was also a mechanic, recorded completion of a phase inspection about nine months before the accident. The inspection included servicing the brake master cylinders, but the pilot reported he did not check the fluid levels of the master cylinders.
Probable cause
A loss of braking due to inadequate servicing of brake fluid by the pilot/mechanic, which resulted in a loss of airplane control on the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN23LA103
- Event ID
- 20230208106701
- Case number
- CEN23LA103
- 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: investigation status, 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: ecde3723ed7bdb1e2c54d0ecd0ad2c8b2da02ff2a5e7e319bcd4c2b3027e58c0; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:19:27.982Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: destination. City misspelled; BIS is Bismarck Municipal Airport at Bismarck, ND, the recorded accident location.