Expert Opinion: Taxiing Hazards and Letting Your Guard Down

“It came from out of nowhere!”

Whether we’ve uttered those words following a close call on the roads or on the taxiway, they ring a bit false. Instead, a lapse in attention has allowed a vehicle, object, person, or animal to come into our perceptual field without our having registered that they’ve arrived until the last moment.

The thing, whatever it was, certainly came from somewhere. We just didn’t see it until we almost hit it.

Incidents during taxiing and other ground maneuvers don’t capture the headlines that accidents involving loss of control in-flight, or deteriorating weather, do. But they pose a hazard to your operations that you may be overlooking. With the perceived increase in runway and other airport incursions throughout 2025, however, we have collectively turned our eyes to the ground. And for good reason.

At least one direct insurer of general aviation piston aircraft, Avemco, has revealed from its claims reports that time in type doesn’t protect pilots from these mishaps—in fact, high time drives complacency, which increases potential risk. After reviewing the Avemco report, key facts popped out worth noting for all pilots:

• Taxiing losses rarely happened to pilots with fewer than 50 hours in type.
• Once pilots pass the 50-hour mark, until they have about 2,500 total flight hours, taxi mishaps accounted for 11% of all claims for the pilot group Avemco analyzed.
• Interestingly enough, the taxi mishap rate increased to 13% for pilots with more than 2,500 hours total time.

Those interviewed point the finger at type-specific complacency for many of these losses. The rate for taxi losses increases a bit with 50 to 100 hours in type, remains relatively low for 100 to 500 hours in type, then begins to jump for the most experienced pilot group with more than 500 hours in type. This is blamed on distractions on the flight deck, with GPS navigators and other flight management systems—and cell phones and iPads—high on the list of culprits.

Kim Skipper, aviation underwriting manager for Avemco, sits in on every claim meeting for the insurer, so she can speak to the breadth of situations in which pilots lose vigilance. “A large portion—up to half—of our claims are ground-only type losses,” she said. For almost 39 years, Skipper has been with Avemco, and she has witnessed several patterns represented in claims by the high-time single- and multiengine piston pilots that Avemco insures.

• Loss of control during taxi: when we think we don’t need to do it at a slow pace, we lose directional control.
• While pushing an airplane in or out of a hangar, we clip a wing or have chocks that get bumped and slip enough to hit the tail on the back wall.
• Towbars also cause issues unless they are in your hands or in the airplane when you go to start the engine(s).

The same personality traits that draw a pilot to flying can become a gateway to complacency: we’re goal-oriented, confident in our skills, and we take to heart the fact that we have people relying upon us to get a flight accomplished efficiently and on schedule.

Do Higher-level Certificates Matter?

While Avemco typically insures owner-pilots, taking a look at the overall accident data reveals that these problems run throughout the Part 91 and 135 worlds—but they take on a different source of human error once you’re talking about moving turbine equipment.

David Hampson, president of Schrager Hampson Aviation Insurance Group, based in Bedford, Massachusetts, pointed out one key difference. “With turbine aircraft, a lot of time the owner-operator is not the one towing the aircraft—it’s FBO line staff or other crew putting it into the owner’s hangar or into a shared hangar.”

Contractual terms with the FBO are important, Hampson said, so be sure to check the fine print. A waiver of subrogation for the FBO, to go after its insurance company for that damage, is common. “Big FBO chains often include a subrogation clause in their contractual terms when the owner is leasing shared space. Because they usually have waiting lists, there’s an aspect of ‘take it or leave it,’ so you don’t have a choice.”

Hampson sees more ground claims involving owner-flown aircraft and turboprops rather than jets, because a pilot is parking in their own hangar. “Even taxiing too…we have not had many claims relative to taxiing in turbine aircraft, perhaps because piston aircraft are more likely to squeeze into a small space,” Hampson said.

He noted one claim involving a line tech guiding a Cirrus in that hit the prop on a parked aircraft with its wing. There was more damage to the parked aircraft because of engine teardown and other inspections involved. These incidents can cause a lot of expensive damage, with a half-million-dollar claim not uncommon, according to Hampson. You may need to factor in ferrying the aircraft to more extensive maintenance, which can add to the cost.

Hampson posited that Starlink satcom going into a broad range of aircraft could also add to the problem—with a greater ability to stream wherever we go, the temptation to distract with the little screen grows.

Detecting the Problem

I turned next to the “Flight Safety Detectives”—a podcast produced and hosted by NTSB veterans John Goglia, Greg Feith, and Todd Curtis—for more insight. Indeed, they have devoted an entire episode to ground-based accidents that revolve around pilot complacency—and those include some larger hardware than a light single or twin. “Lack of operational discipline is leading to avoidable plane damage insurance claims,” said Feith in episode 196 of the podcast, which focuses on the problem. “Because the claims increase insurance rates, all general aviation pilots are paying a price.”

The episode included several examples, including airplanes running over taxi lights, ground collisions with aircraft and other objects, or engines started with towbars attached. Goglia and Feith see this lack of operational discipline by general aviation and professional pilots as a root cause of these avoidable incidents.

Goglia mentioned a fatal accident in 2014 involving a Gulfstream aircraft “where the aircraft operator exhibited operational discipline issues.” In several cases, the pilot failed to maintain adequate distance from an obstruction. “The question is, why did they fail?” asked Feith in the episode. “Is it because their depth perception was bad? Is it because they were complacent, and they taxied that same route a thousand times, and they weren’t really paying attention? They weren’t really understanding their situational awareness? They were a little off the centerline? Were they distracted, talking to ATC? Were they distracted, talking to a passenger? What was going on?

“It’s all about maintaining the highest levels of operational discipline as soon as that airplane starts moving…or that engine starts running,” Feith concluded. And the flight is not over until the aircraft is tugged safely into the hangar or put in the chocks. For example, he noted a Malibu hitting a light pole while being marshaled, with two pilots up front: “You can’t just get zoned in and have that very narrow focus.”

Several factors feel like they’re stuck on repeat, such as starting the engine with the tow bar attached. The antidote? Preflight must be thorough and include safety checks following the main walkaround.

Another pitfall lies in the use of memory items instead of a checklist, which can lead to complacency and skipped items—especially when an abnormal or emergency is transpiring. The remedy? Take a beat, pull out the proper checklist, and run it deliberately—even on the ground when you’re shutting the airplane down.

Pilot, Retrain Thyself

Another category of data to delve into draws from the tales pilots tell themselves in the interest of safety. The Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) is known to pilots as the “NASA report” because the de-identified data goes to that agency for analysis. Pilots are encouraged to file safety reports following an unintentional blunder or mishap (as long as it does not classify as an accident or incident) in exchange for immunity from certificate action by the FAA.

Airline pilot and philanthropist J.J. Madison has written a book reviewing 100 of these reports and gleaning from them what pilots might do to avoid their own mistakes. “Yikes! 100 Smart Pilots and the Dumb Things They Did Yet Lived To Tell About ‘Em” supports the Victor Kilo Fund for pilot scholarships with its sales. And it’s a gold mine for those operating turboprops and jets, as well as their own recreational piston aircraft.

Any departure from normal operations can be a recipe for incidents that go beyond complacency into distraction. And nighttime is particularly hazardous for ground operations, as Madison outlines in this example from the book:

“[It’s] what tripped up a Cessna P210 pilot. After landing at an unfamiliar airport, the pilot missed the first available runway exit. In his NASA report, he wrote that the airport controller dispatched the airport police to guide him to the ramp. ‘The police vehicle had its overhead light bar on with red, blue, and white lights. I informed the tower that the light bar was blinding me, but the controller said the officer needed to have it on.’

“The police lights destroyed the pilot’s night vision. Without alternative indirect lighting to guide him, the pilot was rendered temporarily night-blind. He missed a turn and taxied his plane off the pavement and into the grass. Fortunately, neither the airport property nor the plane was damaged. ‘I believe that this occurrence could have been totally avoided if the police officer had just shut off his light bar,'” the pilot concluded in his report.

“The policy mandating that the police officer keep his light bar on when moving on airport property was put into effect in the interest of safety. It is a requirement common to every airport where I’ve flown. Yet a pilot robbed of night vision while taxiing becomes a safety hazard to ground personnel and property.”

Even the airlines get into it when hazards on the ground produce unintended consequences. In another excerpt from the book, Madison told a cautionary tale.

“A turboprop flight crew filed a NASA report after an assault on their night vision occurred at a deicing station. ‘While deicing at KEWN, the ground crew marshals you into a dedicated deicing area northeast of Runway 22. Either the company or the airport has installed a giant 1,000-watt halogen light at ground level that blasts the flight crew with blinding light so bad that you cannot even see the marshal...’

“The deicing crew turned off the light after the flight crew complained about the light blinding them and making it impossible to see the marshal. The deicing crew informed the flight crew it was local procedure to use that light during deicing operations.

“Blinded by the halogen light, the turboprop flight crew could have run over the marshal or taxied a propeller into him or the deicing truck. Mounting the deicing light at a low level could be for the benefit of the deicing crew. It’s likely positioned at an average wing-level height to help the deicing folks better see the accuracy of their work. It seems, however, that whoever put up that light did not seek input from pilots, or at least take into consideration the effect the light’s position would have on them.”

While night vision training is critical in mitigating these particular scenarios, it remains an overall example of how complacency can get the best of us—especially when we think the flight is over.

And with that in mind, we can remain vigilant and know we’re our own worst enemies when it comes to those incidents that “came out of nowhere.”

The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by AIN Media Group.