Horizon Airlines Flight 2157
de Havilland DHC-8 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From Grant County International Airport (MWH) to Pangborn Memorial Airport (EAT)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA97LA077
- 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
de Havilland DHC-8
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland DHC-8
- 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
- N826PH
- Operator
- Horizon Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grant County International Airport (MWH), Moses Lake, WATo Pangborn Memorial Airport (EAT)
- 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 object
- 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
- Flightcrew › Clearance, not maintained
- Ground personnel › Clearance, not verified
- Ground personnel › Communications, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After an uneventful landing, the pilot was cleared to taxi to the terminal. During the taxi, a ground marshaller signaled for the airplane to be turned (left) toward the northwest. The flight crew initiated a left turn. During the turn, the right wing tip of the airplane collided with a wing deicing cart. The cart tumbled and bounced back toward the trailing edge of the right wing. A portion of the cart impaled the right aileron, causing substantial damage. The captain and first officer did not see the deice cart in time to stop the right wing from striking it during the turn. Subsequent investigation revealed that the marshaller was using a spot on the ramp to park the accident airplane that was intended to be used for a smaller aircraft. Also, the ramp area at the airport did not have any lead-in lines or markings to provide taxi guidance, nor was a 'safe movement' zone designated. Additionally, the decing cart had been noted as a potential hazard by the previous station manager; however, it was not moved because of its needed proximity to an electrical source.
Probable cause
failure of the ground marshaller to marshal the airplane into a correct parking place on the ramp, her failure to verify clearance between the right wing of the airplane and the ground de-ice cart, and failure of the flight crew to ensure clearance of the right wing as the airplane was being taxied into the parking place. Factors relating to the accident include: a congested ramp facility, and inadequate ramp markings.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA97LA077
- Event ID
- 20001208X07632
- Case number
- SEA97LA077
- 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. 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: 9fecdfd41075ff7b8fb6c908f782578dd138e68b433c32f45796e1399feb7d82; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:40:35.442Z.