Connie Kallitta Services Boeing 727-100 incident
Boeing 727-100 · Incident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From Rickenbacker International Airport (LCK) to Denver International Airport (DEN)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN88IA167
- 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
Boeing 727-100
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 727
- 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
- N1973
- Operator
- Connie Kallitta Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rickenbacker International Airport (LCK), Columbus, OHTo Denver International Airport (DEN), Denver, CO
- 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
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Ground personnel › Aircraft handling, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE TAXIING TO THE CARGO RAMP, THE LEFT WING COLLIDED WITH A LIGHTPOLE AS THE FLIGHT CREW WERE DIRECTED BY GND PERS. ONE TAXI DIRECTOR ATTEMPTED TO HANDOFF THE FLIGHT TO ANOTHER BUT THE SECOND MISUNDERSTOOD AND TURNED AWAY. A THIRD PERSON, WHO WAS NOT A TAXI DIRECTOR BUT WAS A SAFETY LOOKOUT, BEGAN TO GIVE TAXI SIGNALS AND THE FLIGHTCREW FOLLOWED HIM. THIS PERSON DETERMINED THAT THE WING WOULD CLEAR THE POLE AND DIRECTED A TURN. HE BELIEVED THE FLIGHTCREW DID NOT TURN AS RAPIDLY AS HE HAD DIRECTED, RESULTING IN THE WING CONTACTING THE POLE. THE SAFETY LOOKOUT SAID HE ATTEMPTED TO STOP THE ACFT BUT HE WAS OUT OF VIEW UNDER THE ACFT NOSE AND HAD TO RUN OUT 15 FEET TO BE SEEN BY THE FLIGHTCREW. THE WINGTIPS ARE DIFFICULT TO SEE FROM THE 727 COCKPIT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN88IA167
- Event ID
- 20001213X26200
- Case number
- DEN88IA167
- 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: 9edcda72eb9278bae802cfab63778d6dce03a3a407dbe9a7db4dfd1d8c5c7745; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:20:16.910Z.