Northwest Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-9-31 accident
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-31 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From John Glenn Columbus International Airport (CMH) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL89FA020
- 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
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-31
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas DC-9
- 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
- N918RW
- Operator
- Northwest Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John Glenn Columbus International Airport (CMH), Columbus, OHTo 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Driver of vehicle › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT WAS BEING TAXIED TO THE GATE WHEN ITS RIGHT WINGTIP STRUCK A CATERING TRUCK THAT HAD BEEN DRIVEN OFF OF THE DESIGNATED DRIVING LANES & PARTIALLY ONTO THE TAXIWAY. THE FLT CREW RPRTD THAT THE TRUCK WAS TRAVELING IN THE SAME DIRECTION WITHIN THE DESIGNATED DRIVING LANES WHEN THEY LAST OBSERVED IT. SHORTLY AFTER THE COCKPIT AREA OF THE ACFT PASSED THE TRUCK, THEY FELT AN IMPACT. WITNESSES RPRTD THE TRUCK LEFT THE DRIVING LANES AS THE DRIVER WAS MANEUVERING AROUND OTHER GROUND VEHICLES THAT WERE OBSTRUCTING THE DRIVING LANES. FAA & ARPT RULES REQUIRED THAT VEHICLES DRIVERS OBTAIN PERMISSION FROM THE TOWER BEFORE CROSSING OR OPERATING ON RUNWAYS OR TAXIWAYS. ALSO, ARPT RULES STATED THAT VEHICLE DRIVERS SHALL YIELD TO TAXIING ACFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL89FA020
- Event ID
- 20001213X26975
- Case number
- ATL89FA020
- 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: 6aeaca3ba290f4a3f6180aa0d78d7c3361040c0e9704ce3518151b47954c710f; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:17:08.489Z.