Air Wisconsin British Aerospace 146-200 incident
British Aerospace 146-200 · Incident: on ground/water collision with object during pushback
From an unrecorded airport to Austin Straubel International Airport (GRB)
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
- CHI91IA073
- 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
British Aerospace 146-200 Narrative disagrees
- Aircraft type
- British Aerospace 146
- 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
- N608AW
- Operator
- Air Wisconsin
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Austin Straubel International Airport (GRB), Green Bay, WI
- 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
- Pushback/towing
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Ground personnel › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Chicago, IL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE INCIDENT TRANSPORT AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH ANOTHER PARKED TRANSPORT AIRPLANE WHILE TAXIING AWAY FROM A GATE AT THE START OF A REVENUE FLIGHT. BOTH AIRPLANES SUSTAINED MINOR DAMAGE. THE PILOT STOPPED THE AIRPLANE AND SHUT IT DOWN. THE PASSENGERS AND CREW DEPLANED USING THE NORMAL CABIN EXITS. THE INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT SIGNALMEN AND WINGWALKERS WERE ROUTINELY GROUND GUIDING AIRCRAFT AT THAT PARKING LOCATION TO A PARKING SPOT THAT WAS DISPLACED TO THE LEFT OF THE PAINTED TAXI GUIDE STRIPES. THIS PRACTICE ALLOWES THE TAIL OF A DEPARTING AIRPLANE TO TRANSCRIBE AN ARC WHICH PASSES THROUGH AN ADJACENT DEDICATED PARKING SPACE AS IT TURNES AWAY FROM THE GATE. WHEN THIS SPACE IS OCCUPIED BY A LONGER AIRPLANE THERE IS INSUFFICIENT CLEARANCE TO ALLOW THE TAIL SURFACES OF THE TWO AIRCRAFT TO CLEAR EACH OTHER. ACCORDING TO RAMP PERSONNEL AN EMERGENCY STOP HAND SIGNAL WAS ISSUED BY THE WINGWALKER BUT WAS NOT RECOGNIZED IN TIME TO STOP THE INCIDENT.
Probable cause
COMPANY PROCEDURES AND DIRECTIVES NOT BEING FOLLOWED BY GROUND PERSONNEL. A FACTOR ASSOCIATED WITH THE ACCIDENT IS COMPLACENCY BY COMPANY/OPERATOR MANAGEMENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI91IA073
- Event ID
- 20001212X16274
- Case number
- CHI91IA073
- 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: d68e1aa1085478844b5bece748b4c5215362cac2da2525ab26db6f4c0ce7c57c; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:57:17.382Z.