WPR24FA304 · Globe Swift GC-1B
Globe Swift GC-1B and Civil Air Patrol Textron Aviation Cessna T206H Station Ai · Accident: midair collision on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR24FA304
- 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
- 1 · 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
Aircraft 1 · Globe Swift GC-1B
- Aircraft type
- Globe Swift GC-1
- 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
- N78074
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pinenut Airport (NV55), Gardnerville, NVTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 78 years (built 1946)
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Midair 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
Aircraft 2 · Textron Aviation Cessna T206H Station Ai
- Aircraft type
- Textron Aviation Cessna T206
- 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
- N844CP
- Operator
- Civil Air Patrol
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 5 years (built 2019)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern crosswind
- 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
- Midair 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
A high-winged Cessna and low-winged Swift collided in midair while operating in the traffic pattern for the same destination runway. The Cessna had completed a touch-and-go landing and was climbing on the left crosswind leg toward the traffic pattern altitude. The Swift was approaching the airport from the northwest/west on a southeast-bound 45° intercept to the left downwind leg off the traffic pattern. About 17 seconds before the presumed collision time, the Swift pilot transmitted on the Common Traffic Advisory Frequency that he was entering the area on a 45° intercept to the downwind leg. The Cessna pilots subsequently began scanning for the Swift, and the right-seated pilot also checked the traffic display. The Swift was not equipped with ADS-B, no traffic target was displayed in the Cessna, and neither Cessna pilot visually acquired the Swift before impact. The Cessna pilots did not state their position after completing the touch-and-go until after the Swift pilot made a transmission of his position, which was just before impact. If the Cessna pilots had made an earlier position transmission it may have given the Swift pilot an opportunity to make visual contact while approaching the airport.
Recorded data from the Cessna, video evidence, and the physical contact signatures on both airplanes were consistent with the Cessna climbing into the Swift from below and aft. Video evidence showed the Swift slightly above the Cessna immediately before the collision. The Cessna’s forward engine and propeller area contacted the lower aft fuselage and tailwheel area of the Swift, resulting in separation of portions of the Swift’s tail section. The relative positions of the airplanes would have placed the Cessna in or near the Swift pilot’s aft blind area. Although the Swift would have been ahead of and slightly above the Cessna during the closing sequence, its limited relative motion against the background likely reduced its visibility to the Cessna pilots. The available evidence was consistent with the pilots of both airplanes not visually acquiring the other airplane in sufficient time to avoid the collision.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilots of both airplanes to see and avoid the other airplane while operating in the airport traffic pattern, which resulted in a midair collision.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR24FA304
- Event ID
- 20240916195128
- Case number
- WPR24FA304
- 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: 7e6bbbc6025455b4140ff2caec40ef894c998fce5075a022eb8c58106e3c6caa; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:12:11.612Z.