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Atlas / NTSB / ERA25LA121

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event ERA25LA121

2025-02-15 Syracuse, New York, United States Airport · SYR None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N1178F

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

CESSNA 172G

Year of manufacture

1966 · 59 years old at event

Engine

CONT MOTOR 0-300 SER (145 hp)

Seats / Engines

4 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19660616

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A049AA

Registrant of record

TRUE COURSE LLC

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The truck driver’s to see and avoid the airplane, which resulted in a collision.

Factual narrative

The flight instructor and the student pilot had just been cleared to taxi from the ramp to the active runway. According to the instructor, as soon as they began to roll forward, an airport operations truck struck the airplane from the right, which resulted in substantial damage to an engine mount. According to the truck driver, had stopped on the service road, short the ramp. He described that there was a large snowbank on his left that obscured his field of vision. As he drove forward, and passed the snowbank, he impacted the airplane. A review of air traffic control (ATC) communications revealed that the truck driver was clear of the active movement area when the accident occurred and was no longer talking to ATC. The impact occurred about 21 seconds after ATC cleared the airplane to taxi. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • Personnel issues-Psychological-Attention/monitoring-Monitoring environment-Airport personnel

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2025_ERA25LA121.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.