GAA15CA262
2015-08-19 · The Dalles, Oregon, United States · None · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed
Airport DLS
Current FAA registration · N1010F
- Make / Model
- AERO COMMANDER 500-B
- Seats / Engines
- 7 seats · 2 engines
- Last airworthiness date
- 19780830
- ADS-B equipped
- Yes — Mode-S A00AC9
Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
A motor vehicle's runway incursion causing the premature rotation of the departing airplane, which resulted in a tail strike.
Factual narrative
According to the pilot, during the takeoff roll, a vehicle entered the runway and he immediately pulled back on the yoke in order to climb and avoid the vehicle. The pilot reported that as the airplane began to rotate, he simultaneously retracted the landing gear, and he felt a "bump" before the airplane lifted off of the runway. The airplane ascended over the incursion vehicle and the pilot avoided a collision. The pilot reported that during the post-flight inspection he checked the landing gear to inspect for damage and he did not find any deficiencies. However, during a subsequent preflight inspection by another crew, it was noticed that the lower aft fuselage was damaged. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the bottom aft fuselage longerons and stringers. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical failures or anomalies prior to or during the flight that would have prevented normal operation. According to the pilot, during the takeoff roll, a vehicle entered the runway and he immediately pulled back on the yoke in order to climb and avoid the vehicle. The pilot reported that as the airplane began to rotate, he simultaneously retracted the landing gear, and he felt a "bump" before the airplane lifted off of the runway. The airplane ascended over the incursion vehicle and the pilot avoided a collision. The pilot reported that during the post-flight inspection he checked the landing gear to inspect for damage and he did not find any deficiencies. However, during a subsequent preflight inspection by another crew, it was noticed that the lower aft fuselage was damaged. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the bottom aft fuselage longerons and stringers. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical failures or anomalies prior to or during the flight that would have prevented normal operation. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12
NTSB Findings
FAA avdata. C = Cause, F = Factor.
- C Environmental issues-Physical environment-Object/animal/substance-Ground vehicle-Effect on operation - C
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2015_GAA15CA262.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
Search this event elsewhere
External sources are reported, not agency: signal that something happened, not fact about what happened.
- TallyAero Live Wire Aviation press
- NTSB CAROL Agency ↗
- NTSB Docket Agency ↗
- Aviation Safety Network Aviation press ↗
- Kathryn's Report Aviation press ↗
- Aviation Herald Aviation press ↗
- AVweb Aviation press ↗
- Pilots of America Community ↗
- Reddit /r/flying Community ↗
- FlightAware Aviation press ↗
- AOPA accident database Aviation press ↗
- Google News News ↗
- DuckDuckGo News ↗
Related research
Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (runway incursion). All research papers
- SKYbrary (Eurocontrol) 2023 · SKYbrary article Runway Incursion — SKYbrary Knowledge Base
SKYbrary runway incursion review — taxonomy (operational error, vehicle/pedestrian, pilot deviation), severity categories A-D, mitigation technologies (ASDE-X, ASSC, RAAS, RIAAS).
- Semantic Scholar 2023 · Article (Future Transportation) Investigating Runway Incursion Incidents at United States Airports
According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the number of runway incursions is increasing. Over the last two decades, the number of runway incursions at U.S.
- FAA-affiliated R&D (MITRE / Volpe / FAA Tech Center) 2022 · MITRE risk analysis Runway Incursion Prevention Systems — Surface Domain Risk Analysis
MITRE risk analysis of runway-incursion prevention systems (RIPS) — ASDE-X / ASSC + Airport Surface Detection Equipment performance characterization. Findings drove FAA Surface Safety Action Plan.
- Semantic Scholar 2020 · Article (Journal of Physics: Conference Series) Comparison of Detection Technology for Runway Incursion Prevention in Airport Hot Spot
The prevention of runway incursion in hot spot of airports has always been one of the research hot spots in the field of international civil aviation.
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2020 · Journal article (IJAAA) Analysis of Runway Incursion Trends: Implications for Cost-Benefit Analysis of Mitigation Investments
This causal-comparative and correlation study investigated the costs of runway incursion safety improvements in relation to their effectiveness to assess potential aviation system benefits.Two airport…
- Semantic Scholar 2020 · Article Analysis of Runway Incursion Trends: Implications for Cost-Benefit Analysis of Mitigation Investments