Britt Airways Flight 3894
Aerospatiale ATR-42-320 · Accident: propeller/rotor contact to person while standing
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC92LA005
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 1
- 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
Aerospatiale ATR-42-320
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale ATR-42
- 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
- N25811
- Operator
- Britt Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- 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
- Propeller/rotor contact to person
- 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
- Other person › Diverted attention
- Other person › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Bridgeport, CT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
FLIGHT 3894 WAS PARKED ON THE RAMP WITH THE RIGHT ENGINE RUNNING, IN PREPARATION FOR DEPARTURE. THE INJURED EMPLOYEE WAS AN OFF DUTY, NON REVENUE PASSENGER TRAVELLING TO NEWARK. THE EMPLOYEE WAS ASSISTING THE STATION AGENT PREPARE THE FLIGHT FOR DEPARTURE WHEN THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED. NEITHER THE FLIGHT CREW NOR THE STATION AGENT WERE AWARE OF THE EMPLOYEE ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE AIRPLANE UNTIL THEY HEARD A 'LOUD THUMP' AND OBSERVED THE EMPLOYEE LYING BENEATH THE PROPELLER. THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED DURING THE HOURS OF DARKNESS.
Probable cause
THE EMPLOYEE'S FAILURE TO FOLLOW PROPER PROCEDURES AND THE DIVERSION OF HER ATTENTION WHICH RESULTED IN HER BEING STRUCK BY A SPINNING PROPELLER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC92LA005
- Event ID
- 20001212X18366
- Case number
- NYC92LA005
- 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: 126bf5dad1515e93f2c9645c8617e780c2872c5b000b6f90b4388285d2b0b118; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:51:34.916Z.