Jet Link Flight 3777
Aerospatiale ATR-42-320 · Accident: on ground/water collision with terrain/water while taxiing
From Shreveport Regional Airport (SHV) to George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA081
- 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
Aerospatiale ATR-42-320
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale ATR-42
- 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
- N14829
- Operator
- Jet Link
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Shreveport Regional Airport (SHV), Shreveport, LATo George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH)
- 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
- Taxi · from runway
- 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
- On ground/water collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Wrong taxi route, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane taxied off the hard surface into the soft grass, coming to rest about 50 feet beyond the edge of the hard surface taxiway. The captain stated that after turning south on NK, he taxied the airplane towards the IAB terminal, and saw what appeared to be a hard surface ramp to the left and right of the airplane and he proceeded to make a left turn believing that he was now taxiing on the IAB ramp. The captain reported that the airport diagram on the Jeppesen charts showed the intersection of NK and the IAB ramp to be a 'T' or 90 degree turn, but in reality, the intersection is constructed at a 45 degree angle to the left of taxiway NK which joins the IAB ramp. The pilot further stated that no lights were available to outline the edge of the ramp area. He added that he continued to taxi in an east direction, believing that he was on the IAB ramp. According to the airport's operations personnel, the taxiway is properly marked with a solid center line and the area is bordered by a double yellow line delineating the edge of the taxiway. Additionally, at the time of the accident, recessed taxiway lights were in place to further delineate the edge of the taxiway.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to follow the proper taxi route while taxiing back to the terminal. A factor was the glare radiating from the airport's terminal area.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA081
- Event ID
- 20001208X07286
- Case number
- FTW97LA081
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1997-01-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7f841d455b1674c9351ccd96f830709ff7033d587bf86b78a49935ae16f60c2d; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:43:24.539Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N14829; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.