America West Airlines Flight 680
Boeing 757-200 · Accident during pushback
From an unrecorded airport to Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's injuries. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94LA333
- 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
Boeing 757-200
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 757
- 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
- N901AW
- Operator
- America West Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), Newark, NJ
- 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
- Pushback/towing
- 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
- None
Cause areas
- Ground personnel › Diverted attention
- Ground personnel › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE HEADSET OPERATOR WAS DISTRACTED FOR UNDETERMINED REASONS DURING PUSHBACK AND WAS RUN OVER BY THE NOSE WHEEL. GROUND WITNESSES SAID HE FAILED TO MAINTAIN A POSITION AT LEAST 10 FEET FROM THE AIRPLANE'S NOSE WHEEL AS HIS EMPLOYER REQUIRED. THE HEADSET OPERATOR WAS IN CHARGE OF THE PUSHBACK, AND IN THE PREVIOUS MONTH WAS HIRED AND COMPLETED THE OPERATOR'S COURSE OF RAMP SAFETY/PUSHBACK INSTRUCTION. THIS WAS HIS FIRST UNSUPERVISED EXPERIENCE. THE AIRLINE HAS A PROCEDURE WHICH REQUIRED THE HEADSET OPERATOR TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE FLIGHT DECK VIA A COMMUNICATIONS CORD WHICH WAS PLUGGED INTO THE AIRPLANE'S NOSE GEAR STRUT. THE AIRLINE HAD A SIMILAR GROUND ACCIDENT IN 1989 WHEN THE AIRLINE'S B-757 ALSO OVERRAN A HEADSET OPERATOR. IN APRIL 1994, THE FAA ALERTED THE OPERATOR OF HEADSET PUSHBACK ACCIDENTS FOLLOWING THE ISSUANCE OF THE SAFETY BOARD RECOMMENDATION A-93-55. AFTER THIS ACCIDENT, THE AIRLINE CHANGED ITS GROUND HANDLING EQUIPMENT AND PROCEDURES TO ELIMINATE THE NECESSITY OF A HEADSET OPERATOR WALKING IN THE PROXIMITY OF ANY AIRCRAFT NOSE WHEEL.
Probable cause
the failure of the headset operator to adhere to established company safety procedures when he diverted his attention during pushback. A factor in the accident was the airline's failure to modify its ground handling procedures and equipment to eliminate the need for ground personnel to be in close proximity to the aircraft landing gear during pushback operations.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94LA333
- Event ID
- 20001206X02087
- Case number
- LAX94LA333
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- 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, damage. 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: 50ff844e309428206d90f9fdfe69784a95c4d0a354df584c9fdcd9da94841024; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:09:45.695Z.