News

Accountants Private Jets Collide in Houston

You can’t make this stuff up. Accountants private jets collide in Houston at the Hobby International Airport. On October 24th a runway collision of two aircraft occurred, now under investigation by the NTSB. As it turns out both aircraft are owned by CPA firms.

A Hawker 850XP was taking off when it collided with a Cessna 510 that was just landing. The Hawker immediately landed after takeoff, with wing damage. The Cessna sustained tail damage.

The NTSB reports that the Hawker was instructed by an air traffic controller to line up and wait. Apparently, the pilot did not follow / hear the instructions and took off anyway. Preliminary NTSB report says pilot claims he changed frequency on radio.

The Hawker had 3 people on board (2 pilots / 1 passenger) and the Cessna had 4 (1 pilot / 3 passengers). No injuries were reported. It is of note that the initial NTSB report and news organizations reported 5 people on the Cessna, the detailed report says only 4 were onboard.

According to public records, The Hawker N269AA is owned by Messina & Associates, Ltd of Chicago, IL. The Cessna N510HM is owned by an LLC organized by Daniel Cheung, an aircraft tax advisor for Aviation Tax Consultants of Columbus, IN.

When we think of private jets it’s usually the rich and famous, who have accountants that work for them. What are the odds of two accountants with their own private jets and then actually colliding on a runway ?

While private aircraft incidents like this are infrequent, many can be attributed to pilot error, inexperience, or training. This does look like pilot error in this case.

Some other recent incidents:

There was recent flurry of runway incidents involving HondaJets, overrunning runways, which appear to be pilot training / experience related.
It’s not just private jets, small aircraft have incidents too. We recently reported on a fatal accident involving 2 aircraft. This was even more tragic as it was part of flight training.

When flying a private aircraft, it’s important to be sure the pilot has experience with that aircraft, the route, and the particular airports.