The PA46 pilot was stopped on the taxiway at the airport in Brookshire, Texas, behind another airplane when a P-51 hit his airplane from behind.
After the collision, the P-51 pilot told the PA46 pilot that he did not see the PA46.
The P-51 pilot told investigators that he was taxiing to the runway and was aware of two other airplanes taxiing ahead of him. He told them he was “taxiing at idle speed, making long S turns, and making sure to clear all aircraft ahead.”
The first airplane in line departed and he continued taxiing toward the run-up area and was unaware that the second airplane was stopped on the taxiway.
The P-51 collided with the empennage of the PA46 and the pilot applied the brakes to stop the airplane. The PA46 sustained substantial damage to the empennage.
Probable Cause: The P51 pilot’s failure to see and avoid the PA46 during taxi operations.
To download the final report. Click here. This will trigger a PDF download to your device.
This December 2022 accident report is provided by the National Transportation Safety Board. Published as an educational tool, it is intended to help pilots learn from the misfortunes of others.
radiantinstruments.com sells a taxi camera product which helps with vision while taxiing. Seems unlikely this event would have happened if it was installed and used.
I installed a license plate mount-style camera onto the carb intake fairing of my “Starduster Too”. With an off-the-shelf wire harness, it plugged directly into my IFly GPS remote camera port. I can easily switch from navigation mode to a forward-looking camera before landing. All camera components came from Amazon and cost about $35 in total. Now it is easy to see narrow taxiways, wandering spectators at fly-ins and you can actually land on narrow runways and by camera only, if your passengers head blocks any forward view. Best aviation investment I’ve ever made.
Actually, given the price on those two planes, That would be a pretty even court fight.
If it had been a 172, He would have been on the hook for that mustang’sa prop and spinner.
“After the collision, the P-51 pilot told the PA46 pilot that he did not see the PA46.”
That was probably an unnecessary comment.
Considering all things, it doesn’t surprise me. Displacing blame here ’51…
Bob Hoover took out a pickup truck at the Reno Air Races years ago in his P51,I don’t recall the year.
Does the P51 get to paint a PA 46 on its side? Asking for a friend.
Backup cameras on the front of taildraggers . . . someone sells a kit (experimental aircraft only) for exactly this, they want $400 for it. Ebay has very, very similar kits for $25-30 or so – camera, wiring, display. Likely not the highest quality, but if it keeps you from running into something one time, it just paid for itself a thousand times over. The camera itself is maybe the size of a peanut and costs a whole ten bucks, how much trouble would it be to wire it into a glass panel?
Do we NEED it? Probably not. But it might be nice to have. There is no substitute for looking out the windows (or in an open cockpit taildragger, through the windshield), but if the $2,000,000+ helmet in an F-35 lets the pilot “look through the airplane”, why shouldn’t we be able to do it, too, and for a lot less?
I recall seeing images of WWII aircraft taxing with a person sitting out on the wing to guide the pilot safely. Not really practical these days but the modern centerline camera does that. For those old warbirds you could probably mount it in the gun camera location and not even have an external mount. That would be a nice wat to explain the moren addition to the cockpit, realtime gun camera system. Just some more thoughts on the subject.
STC for auto backup cameras in noses of tail wheels?
Mount a streaming camera to the centerline hardpoint?