Status:	Final
Date:	3 AUG 2008
Time:	15:19
Type:	Cessna 550 Citation II
Operator:	Drug Plastics & Glass Company Inc
Registration:	N827DP
C/n / msn:	550-0660
First flight:	1990
Engines:	2 Pratt & Whitney JT15D-4
Crew:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 2
Passengers:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 0
Total:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 2
Airplane damage:	Substantial
Location:	Reading Municipal Airport/Spaatz Field, PA (RDG) (United States of America)
Phase:	Landing (LDG)
Nature:	Ferry/positioning
Departure airport:	Pottstown/Limerick Airport, PA (PTW), United States of America
Destination airport:	Reading Municipal Airport/Spaatz Field, PA (RDG/KRDG), United States of America

Narrative:
A Cessna 550, N827DP, was substantially damaged when it impacted an agricultural tractor during a landing roll at Reading Regional Airport/Carl A. Spatz Field (RDG). The captain, first officer, and tractor operator were not injured. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and no flight plan had been filed for the flight from Pottstown Limerick Airport (PTW), to Reading.
At 15:15, the airplane was cleared to land on runway 31, and at 15:17, the tractor operator contacted the tower on the ground control frequency in order to proceed from the "terminal ramp" to the "north ramp." The controller then cleared the tractor to cross runway 31 at taxiway D. At 15:19, the crew of the airplane informed the controller that the airplane had struck the front of a tractor at the intersection of runway 31 and taxiway D. Approximately two thirds of the airplane's left wing had broken off.

PROBABLE CAUSE: "The air traffic controller’s failure to properly monitor the runway environment. Contributing to the accident was the tractor operator’s failure to scan the active runway prior to crossing, and the Federal Aviation Administration’s inadequate emphasis on vehicle operator visual vigilance when crossing active runways with air traffic control clearance."

Events:

Sources:
» NTSB