America West Airlines Flight 2082
Boeing 757-2G7 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during pushback
From Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) to San Diego International Airport (SAN)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99LA322
- 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 757-2G7
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 757
- 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
- N910AW
- Operator
- America West Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX)To San Diego International Airport (SAN), San Diego, CA
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Flightcrew › Checklist, not verified
- Ground personnel › Communications, not verified
- Pilot in command › Communications, not understood
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight was over 30 minutes late due to repeated delays when a mechanic told the captain that a serviceable part on his aircraft needed to be swapped out with one from another aircraft. The captain said at this point he was angry and his blood pressure was 'up to the stroke level.' Minutes later, the mechanic told the captain that maintenance control had decided not to change parts and the aircraft was 'all closed up and ready to go.' The captain thought that this meant the aircraft doors, while the mechanic meant that all maintenance access doors were secured. Neither the captain nor the first officer checked the door status lights on the overhead panel or the EICAS display, and both were unaware that a gate agent was still onboard trying to rectify an oversold passenger situation. The L2 door was open and the jet bridge was still attached to the airplane. The captain then asked the tug driver if they were ready to go. The captain said he heard the tug driver say that all doors and access panels are closed, while the tug driver said that he replied that all service doors and cargo doors, except for the jet bridge, were secured and locked. The captain then told the tug driver they were clear to pushback. The tug driver signaled the wing walkers and then began the pushback, damaging the jet bridge, the L2 door, a section of aircraft skin, and the L2 evacuation slide. After the accident, the right wing walker said that he had not given the tug driver the all clear signal required by company policy prior to pushback. The left wing walker assumed that the something was wrong with the jet bridge since the captain had ordered a pushback and signaled the driver that the ramp was clear.
Probable cause
The failure of the flight crew and the tug driver to verify that the aircraft was properly configured for pushback. Factors in the accident were the left wing walker's failure to notify the tug driver of his observations that the jet bridge was still in contact with the aircraft, and, self induced pressure on the part of the captain created by a chain of circumstances surrounding the numerous delays.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99LA322
- Event ID
- 20001212X19309
- Case number
- LAX99LA322
- 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: 60e6967f5aa7d4b10aa5601dab632069ba590fdd3e0d9a1a15c4eeb61465f982; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:55:04.322Z.