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Narrow grass airstrip and distracted pilot a bad combination

By NASA · March 16, 2023 ·

This is an excerpt from a report made to the Aviation Safety Reporting System. The narrative is written by the pilot, rather than FAA or NTSB officials. To maintain anonymity, many details, such as aircraft model or airport, are often scrubbed from the reports.

After an uneventful landing at a charted grass airstrip, myself and my student were taxiing on the runway to the parking area.

Our left main tire dropped into a ditch on the left side of the (narrow) runway, which dropped the left wingtip low enough that it caught on a fence post, pulling the plane around into the fence. The propeller struck the fence, coming to a stop after becoming entangled in the barbed wire fence.

The root of the issue was my lack of vigilance about runway edge surface condition, complacency about centerline control, and failure to ignore in-cockpit distractions.

Primary Problem: Human Factors

ACN: 1932482

About NASA

NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) captures confidential reports, analyzes the resulting aviation safety data, and disseminates vital information to the aviation community.

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Comments

  1. Jim Macklin says

    March 18, 2023 at 4:06 pm

    Sounds like taxing too fast if there was so much inertia for all that to happen

  2. James Brian Potter says

    March 17, 2023 at 5:42 am

    Refreshing honest self-reflection by the instructor on his inattention to detail. Cost a good airplane, though.

  3. Jerry King says

    March 17, 2023 at 5:17 am

    OH #%#$%^#&*(#@$

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