2024-07 · NASA ASRS report 2145006
A C208 air taxi flight crew reported their wing struck the branch of a tree while taxiing but they continued their flight not realizing the wing was dented.
Landed in ZZZ for a 135 charter. After unloading the passengers we had a super quick turn for a XA06 pickup out of ZZZ1 airport and it was already XA00. After hopping in we started up and heard a PC12 and Comanche inbound within the next 5 minutes; so we taxied out to give them room to park cause the ramp was already packed up with aircraft. I advised my captain that taking a back taxi would be ideal cause the wingspan on the Caravan would be a tight fit going down the taxiway at ZZZ. With such little time the captain continued on with going down the taxiway instead. About 100 yards into taxing we clipped some tree branches on the very edge of the right side wingtip and immediately felt the initial shift of hitting them. No observed damage was seen from the cockpit so we continued on with the flight to ZZZ1. After landing in ZZZ1 the captain took a very quick glance at the wingtip and was very shortly after greeted with the passengers for the flight; with such little time to contemplate and a little bit of pressure; we opted to continue on with the flight to ZZZ2 Airport. No anomaly's were sensed while in flight and we landed safely in ZZZ2 airport and dropped off the passengers. After having extra time to evaluate the damage we realized there was a pretty good sized dent in the leading edge of the wing and immediately notified maintenance after observation of the wingtip. The flights later on were cancelled and the aircraft was grounded until further inspection by maintenance was done.
Was at ZZZ airport; and just dropped off some passengers. The ramp was full as we were taxiing out. Two more aircraft were inbound so we opted to use the taxiway instead of back taxiing since it was going to be a conflict on the ramp for space and we were running behind schedule. I have taxied down the taxiway numerous times in the amphib caravan; but this was a land van. We were on the centerline taxiing out and our wing hit a tree branch that hadn't been trimmed enough. I thought the small bump was just some uneven asphalt but my FO informed me that we hit a bush. I didn't see any damage and just thought it was a minor scrape. We departed and flew to our next stop which was to pick up a passenger and we were behind schedule. After landing the passengers came right out to the plane; after a quick walk by I only noticed a couple scuffs; so we departed to ZZZ1. Once on the ground I walked by again and noticed it was worse than I thought and called the company's Supervisor and Dispatch. We downed the plane and are working on a ferry permit to being it back to home base.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.
Loading the flight search…
Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.
We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.
Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.
Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.