Merlin Express Flight 421
Fairchild SA227-AC · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From an unrecorded airport to Kenai Municipal Airport (ENA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC97LA127
- 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
Fairchild SA227-AC
- Aircraft type
- Fairchild SA227
- 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
- N27188
- Operator
- Merlin Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Kenai Municipal Airport (ENA), Kenai, AK
- 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 · 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
- 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
- Driver of vehicle › Unsafe/hazardous condition, disregarded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A scheduled domestic passenger flight, operating under Title 14 CFR Part 121, was taxiing from the terminal toward the departure runway. Adjacent to the end of the terminal building, an airport baggage tug appeared from around the end of the concourse building. The driver of the tug attempted to stop, but was unable to avoid colliding with the outboard end of the right wing of the airplane. The cab portion of the tug struck the wing, about 4 feet inboard from the tip. The wing sustained crushing, and tearing of the leading edge. The tug's brakes were ineffective from wet surface conditions or due to a mechanical malfunction. Rain was falling at the time, and the airport ramps were wet.
Probable cause
the baggage tug driver's disregard for wet taxiway/ramp conditions, which resulted in his inability to avoid a taxiing airplane as he came around the end of a concourse building. Darkness, rain, and the wet ramp conditions were related factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC97LA127
- Event ID
- 20001208X08536
- Case number
- ANC97LA127
- 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: 9cd63d7e46242c163cbcf85e56f1e9d4a0d9b5a89df2f6e89f954216cd3fb8fd; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:25:36.715Z.