Business Express Flight 6240
Saab-Scania AB (Saab) 340B · Accident while standing
From Presque Isle International Airport (PQI) to Boston Logan International Airport (BOS)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC99LA092
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Saab-Scania AB (Saab) 340B
- Aircraft type
- Saab Scania Ab (saab) 340
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N347BE
- Operator
- Business Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Presque Isle International Airport (PQI), Presque Isle, METo Boston Logan International Airport (BOS)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 121: Air Carrier
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Standing · engine(s) not operating
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Miscellaneous/other
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Driver of vehicle › Miscellaneous equipment, uncontrolled
- Driver of vehicle › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Boston, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
A baggage belt-loader struck the parked airplane in an area below the cargo door. The vehicle approached the airplane without stopping, and the driver jumped off just before the collision. At the time, the airplane's engines were secured, the wheels were chocked, the seat belt sign had been turned off, and the parking checklist had been completed. The passengers were standing, and the flight attendant was waiting for the signal to open the door. Ground support personnel checked the belt-loader braking system immediately after the collision and found no discrepancies. The airline had a published procedure in place, wherein the belt-loader driver was required to stop the vehicle 50 feet prior to the airplane, and again, at least 8 feet away from the airplane. The driver was then required to approach the airplane with the belt-loader at a 'creep' speed.
Probable cause
The belt-loader driver's loss of control of the vehicle, and his failure to follow published procedures for approaching the airplane with the belt-loader.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC99LA092
- Event ID
- 20001205X00555
- Case number
- NYC99LA092
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ba14132f38c20369d651b3b49fa06aec13c974d1cd2641cd22051b82b36251cc; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:57:19.938Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N347BE; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, PLGA.