It’s not one of aviation’s biggest killers, but it might be the most embarrassing mistake to explain afterward: In a typical year, the NTSB reports on about three dozen pilots who crunch airplanes while trying to taxi. And that doesn’t count the impacts that merely crack wing tips, blow tires, or cause prop strikes; Part 830 only requires reporting blunders whose outcomes “adversely affect the structural strength, performance, or flight characteristics of the aircraft.” In fact, damage confined to wing tips, gear, flaps, and propeller blades is specifically exempted, so those airplanes hit hard. Bloodshed is rare (just 10 serious injuries in the past 15 years), but a wreck on the ground undercuts any claim of being competent to fly.
So how do you break an airplane without breaking ground? Ignoring the wind is one way. About 20 percent of taxi accidents were blamed on gusts (including 19 aircraft blown over by another aircraft’s propwash or jet blast). While students tend to forget that they still must use the flight controls on the ground, they’re actually no more prone to lose an airplane to this oversight than rated pilots who’ve presumably demonstrated appropriate wind corrections on at least one practical test. Maybe students just aren’t out in strong winds that often—or maybe this is another of those fine points too many pilots learn just long enough to get through their checkrides.
More than 60 percent of taxi accidents are cases of pilots driving airplanes into hangars, airport vehicles, other aircraft, lights, or signs; collapsing the gear running into holes, ruts, or ditches; or going off the pavement and over embankments or into retaining walls. We don’t have official statistics on how many of these folks were trying to use that boring taxi time to program the GPS, copy the ATIS, check stock quotes, catch up on email, or write poetry, but you can probably guess.
Once they can steer a straight line, students can become complacent about taxiing. When yours start thinking they’re sharp enough to tune the radios while the airplane’s moving, you might want to ask which would be worse: admitting they weren’t paying attention, or trying to explain why they saw that hangar—and ran into it anyway?
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