USAir Flight 1722
Douglas DC-9-30 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport (YOW) to Philadelphia International Airport (PHL)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC98LA177
- 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
Douglas DC-9-30
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-9
- 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
- N927VJ
- Operator
- USAir
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport (YOW), OttawaTo Philadelphia International Airport (PHL)
- 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
- Driver of vehicle › Airport operations, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The DC-9-30 cleared the runway and was taxiing into an alleyway entrance between terminal concourses, when it's left wing struck a fuel truck that was traveling on a service road. The fuel truck, traveling from left to right, came from behind a stopped airplane. The fuel truck was about 150 feet beyond the vehicle stop sign. The airplane's left main landing gear tire left skid marks 47 feet in length on the ramp. The fuel truck driver reported he had stopped at the stop sign prior to crossing the alleyway entrance. The stop sign only required a stop if aircraft were present. In addition, drivers were taught that airplanes had the right of way over vehicles. The fuel truck driver's visibility to the right was restricted by equipment on the truck and the stopped airplane. The pilot's visibility to the left was restricted by the stopped airplane. When the fuel truck appeared from behind the stopped airplane, the fuel truck driver observed the airplane, stopped, and was attempting to back out of the way when he was struck by the airplane.
Probable cause
the failure of the fuel truck driver to follow airport operating procedures, and yield the right-of-way to the airplane. Factors were the stopped airplane, which obscured the fuel truck from the approaching airplane and the approaching airplane from the fuel truck, and the lack of visual aids on the vehicle to help compensate for restricted driver visibility to the right.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC98LA177
- Event ID
- 20001211X11147
- Case number
- NYC98LA177
- 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: 9c435b58831c520a666728e345a4958ce9c3e7ea9dc16c31fe2b1130e1688e5f; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:05:24.165Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N927VJ; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, USAA.