Virgin Atlantic Airways Boeing 747-238 accident
Boeing 747-238 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From London to Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC92LA157
- 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
Boeing 747-238
- 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
- GVOIG
- Operator
- Virgin Atlantic Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From LondonTo Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)
- 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 · 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
- Airport facilities, ramp facilities › Inadequate
- Airport personnel › Airport operations, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Newark, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
AFTER LANDING THE CREW WAS INSTRUCTED TO TAXI TO A HOLDING AREA KNOWN AS 'YANKEE AIRCRAFT PARKING' TO AWAIT A GATE ASSIGNMENT. WHILE MANEUVERING INTO PARKING SPACE NO.4, THE RIGHT WING TIP STRUCK A LIGHT POLE, SEVERING A 6 FT SECTION. A SIMILAR INCIDENT OCCURRED SEVERAL MONTHS PRIOR WITH ANOTHER BOEING 747. THE PORT AUTHORITY SUBSEQUENTLY RESTRICTED THE USE OF PARKING SPACE NO.4 AREA T0 NARROWBODY AIRCRAFT ONLY.
Probable cause
THE AIRPORT AUTHORITY'S FAILURE TO ASSURE ADEQUATE OBSTACLE CLEARANCE FOR AIRCRAFT MANUEVERING AROUND THE RAMP AREA.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC92LA157
- Event ID
- 20001211X15504
- Case number
- NYC92LA157
- 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: 16e0f02aa169c7d2989cc89798f4542707ad9510f7bb51b9cf996d590c78401c; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:44:55.057Z.