Delta Air Lines Flight 82
Lockheed L-1011 · Accident during pushback
From John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) to Nice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC97LA064
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 1
- 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
Lockheed L-1011
- Aircraft type
- Lockheed L-1011
- 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
- N762DA
- Operator
- Delta Air Lines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)To Nice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE), Nice
- 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 › Unsafe/hazardous condition, not identified
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Jamaica, NY, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The L-1011 was pushed back from the gate by a groundcrew of 3 employees. The tug operator was seated facing the airplane, while wing walkers were placed at the left and right wing tips. The tug operator then looked over his right shoulder to pull the airplane forward, to align it with the center line of the taxiway. During this movement, he maintained visual contact with the left wing walker. When the forward motion was initiated, the left and right wing walkers started to converge towards the tow bar, anticipating the disconnect of the airplane when it stopped. The left wing walker observed the right wing walker, the designated Dispatch Agent (DA) for the flight, approach the tow bar. The left wing walker glanced at the left wing tip, and when his vision returned to the tow bar, the right wing walker was under the nose wheel of the airplane with the tug operator's headset cord. The Delta Ground Operations Manual 10-043 (GOM), did not specify where members of the pushback crew should be positioned during the pushback to ensure safety. The GOM also did not discuss any potential hazards associated with aircraft movement and engine operation. The DA, usually one of the two wing walkers, was expected to remain in view of the tug driver and in view of the flight crew during the pushback maneuver. Also, the DA was required to monitor the pushback, and 'be prepared to act on any signals from the wing walkers.' The company published new procedures as a result of the accident.
Probable cause
The failure of the right wing walker, also the push back supervisor, to identify and avoid a hazardous condition, which resulted in his activity near the airplane's nose wheel during tow operations, and where he was subsequently caught under the nose wheel. A factor in the accident was the failure of the Delta Ground Operations Manual to provide adequate safety information.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC97LA064
- Event ID
- 20001208X07619
- Case number
- NYC97LA064
- 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, 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: 88a0b333ea3da28958567c34aa149934d561b9fa7574c8752602de5d3436151d; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:40:31.060Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N762DA; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.