USAir Fokker F-100 accident
Fokker F-100 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while standing
From Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) to Norfolk International Airport (ORF)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC98LA075
- 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
Fokker F-100
- Aircraft type
- Fokker F-100
- 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
- N863US
- Operator
- USAir
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Philadelphia International Airport (PHL)To Norfolk International Airport (ORF), Norfolk, VA
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) operating
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After the airplane was pushed back from the gate at night, a fuel truck travelling eastbound on the outer service road struck the left wing tip of the airplane, that overhung the outer service road. The fuel truck driver said that he saw the airplane was pushed off the gate and shortly thereafter he noticed the ground crew were in the process of unhooking from the airplane. He saw the road was clear, and then he saw the tug swinging wide onto the service road, and coming towards him. He said, '...I diverted my attention to the tug driver...In a split second as I made gesture to look back and then look back up I was struck in the head... .' The investigation revealed that US Airways had conducted a two man push back in accordance with their ground procedures manual. The US Airways ground procedures manual did not require a safety person with illuminated wands to be present at the service road when a portion of the airplane covered the service road. The Fokker F-100 was not equipped with rear side wing tip lights.
Probable cause
The driver's failure to maintain clearance from the parked airplane. Related factors were night conditions and the driver's diverted attention.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC98LA075
- Event ID
- 20001211X09761
- Case number
- NYC98LA075
- 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 1998-03-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3023549107656429ce948c7f655d11e6715a207ab1c3fccb70ab70bd307bd353; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:11:55.626Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N863US; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, USAA.