American Eagle Airlines Flight 4286
Aerospatiale ATR-42-300 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while standing
From Capital Region International Airport (LAN) to Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's injuries. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI99LA289
- 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
Aerospatiale ATR-42-300
- 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
- N282AT
- Operator
- American Eagle Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Capital Region International Airport (LAN), Lansing, MITo Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)
- 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
- 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
- None
Cause areas
- Ground personnel › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Chicago, IL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The Aerospatiale ATR-42 was parked at gate G-16 at the O'Hare International Airport when a ramp service clerk walked into the right propeller. The left engine was shut down at the time and the right engine was operating. The clerk received nine stitches to his head and a broken collar bone. Aircraft wing lights and ramp lights were illuminated at the time. Headlights from vehicles parked on the ramp were also illuminating the right side of the airplane. The clerk was hired approximately 2 months prior to the accident. According to company records, he had received training regarding propeller awareness and the hazards of working around propeller driven aircraft.
Probable cause
the failure of the ramp service clerk to maintain clearance with the operating propeller. A factor related to the accident the inattentiveness on the part of the clerk.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI99LA289
- Event ID
- 20001212X19442
- Case number
- CHI99LA289
- 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: local date, investigation status, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1999-08-14.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 19ba96d73b15791f5b0ce5d1f1a74ff9354ae0844873aab82874b1aecdd5ace9; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:54:19.897Z.