SkyWest Airlines Fairchild SA227AC accident
Fairchild SA227AC · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From Ontario International Airport (ONT) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX89FA086
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Fairchild SA227AC
- Aircraft type
- Fairchild SA227
- 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
- N26895
- Operator
- SkyWest Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ontario International Airport (ONT), Ontario, CATo 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE SA227 HAD LANDED & WAS TAXIING TO THE GATE WITH THE TAXI, LANDING, RECOGNITION & STROBE LIGHTS OFF. AS IT TAXIED NORTHBOUND TOWARD THE GATE, THE DRIVER OF AN EASTBOUND FUEL TANKER TRUCK FAILED TO STOP AT A POSTED 'STOP FOR ACFT' SIGN AT THE INTERSECTION OF THE VEHICLE SERVICE ROAD & THE TAXIWAY. THE TANKER TRUCK COLLIDE WITH, AND PARTIALLY SEVERED, THE ACFT'S LEFT WING. THE DRIVER OF THE TANKER TRUCK INDICATED THAT HE DID NOT OBSERVE THE ACFT UNTIL IT WAS RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIS TRUCK & THEN IT WAS TOO LATE TO STOP. THE TANKER TRUCK DRIVER'S 1:30-2:00 VIEW VIEW WAS PARTIALLY BLOCKED BY THE TRUCK STRUCTURE; THE 2:00-3:00 VIEW CONSIDERABLY RESTRICTED BY THE TRUCK'S CAGE STRUCTURE & EQUIPMENT CONTAINED THEREIN. AIRPORT REGULATIONS REQUIRE THAT 'LOW SILHOUTTE' AIRCRAFT TAXI WITH LANDING LIGHTS ON UNTIL CLEAR OF TAXIWAYS AND INTERSECTING VEHICLE ACCESS ROADS.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE FUEL TANKER DRIVER TO SEE AND AVOID THE MOVING AIRCRAFT. FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WERE THE DRIVER'S OBSTRUCTED VISIBILITY THROUGH THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE VEHICLE'S CAB, AND THE DUSK LIGHT CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX89FA086
- Event ID
- 20001213X27600
- Case number
- LAX89FA086
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1989-01-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: cd9beaf53a6476a651a420c4c3da26293a696ded66c12b7bcb5d120039cd0843; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:14:46.874Z.