Royal Dutch Airlines Flight 662
Boeing 747-300 · Incident: collision between aircraft (not in flight) while taxiing
From George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (EHAM)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's aircraft involved. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97IA161
- 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
- Incident
- 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 747-300 Narrative disagrees
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 747
- 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
- PHBUL
- Operator
- Royal Dutch Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH)To Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (EHAM), Amsterdam
- 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 129: Foreign
- 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 · to 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
- Collision between aircraft (not in flight)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Copilot/second pilot › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
An Air France Boeing 767 was number one in sequence for takeoff at the runup area for runway 14L. The Air France flight reported that they were not ready for takeoff. KLM flight 662 was cleared by ATC to taxi into position and hold for departure on 14L. While taxiing around the standing Air France 767, the extended right outboard leading edge flap from the KLM 747 impacted the left wing tip of the Air France 767, resulting in minor damage to both airplanes. Airport operations personnel reported that no fuel was spilled from either aircraft and both airplanes taxied back to their respective gates. Air France's maintenance personnel replaced the left wing navigation light assembly from the 767 and the airplane was released and departed approximately 3 hours after the intended departure time. According to the FAA inspector at the site, the wing tip is visible from the cockpit of the 747. Additionally, he stated that the side window was crazed. The scheduled departure time for KLM flight 662 was 1540.
Probable cause
The first officer's failure to maintain clearance while taxiing around a standing airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97IA161
- Event ID
- 20001208X07702
- Case number
- FTW97IA161
- 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: 1915575c269d878c57df84a02b5d2d774e38013fdf357bffadd954869a952b9f; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:37:51.104Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for PHBUL; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.