USAir Boeing 727 accident
Boeing 727 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during pushback
From BVT · Burlington, VT to San Francisco, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC87LA108
- 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 727
- 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
- N780AL
- Operator
- USAir
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From BVT · Burlington, VTTo San Francisco, 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
- Ground personnel › Equipment, other, conflicting
- Ground personnel › Proper assistance, not performed
- Ground personnel › Unsafe/hazardous condition warning, not issued
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Burlington, VT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
IN PREPARATION FOR POWERING AWAY FROM THE GATE, ONE GROUNDMAN WAS STATIONED OFF THE LEFT NOSE OF THE ACFT AND ANOTHER WAS POSITIONED BY THE LEFT WING TIP. THE PLT ADVANCED THE THROTTLES AND INITIATED A RIGHT TURN. THE THROTTLES WERE BROUGHT BACK TO IDLE SHORTLY AFTER THE ACFT STARTED ROLLING TO PREVENT JET BLAST DAMAGE. ACCORDING TO THE CPT OF FLT 37, THE SECOND TIME HE LOOKED OUT THE WINDOW HE SAW A GROUNDMAN GIVING HIM A SIGNAL TO SLOW DOWN, HOWEVER, IT WAS TOO LATE TO AVOID HITTING THE JETWAY WITH THE LEFT WING TIP. INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE JETWAY HAD BEEN IMPROPERLY POSITIONED MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE BOEING 727 TO CLEAR IT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC87LA108
- Event ID
- 20001213X30543
- Case number
- NYC87LA108
- 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: 980d803f30f9f6528bac311fbc8fac4eaa14fb0a63d32e97e19d4fad0036fe98; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:42:33.875Z.