All Nippon Airways Boeing 747-200B accident
Boeing 747-200B · Accident while standing
From an unrecorded airport to TOKYO,JAPAN
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO87FA053
- 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
- 1 · 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 747-200B
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 747
- 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
- JA182
- Operator
- All Nippon Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo TOKYO,JAPAN
- 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 129: Foreign
- 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) not 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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 › Crew/group coordination, not performed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Washington, DC, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
A FLIGHT ATTENDANT FELL FROM THE ACFT DURING OPENING OF THE L5 DOOR. THE F/A WAS HELPING A COMPANY GROUND PERSON, WHO WAS OUTSIDE ON THE BOARDING STEP. THE BOARDING STEP WAS NOT AGAINST THE ACFT BUT ABOUT 1 FT AWAY FROM IT. WHEN THE DOOR WAS OPENED, THE F/A FELL THRU THE OPEN DOORWAY AND TO THE GROUND ABOUT 20 FT BELOW. THE COMPANY PROCEDURE REQUIRES HAND SIGNAL COMMUNICATION BETWEEN PERSONNEL INSIDE AND OUTSIDE DURING DOOR OPENING. THE INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT RADIO COMMUNICATIONS WERE BEING USED BETWEEN THE GROUND PERSONNEL AND A COMPANY REP. THE GROUND PERSON COULD NOT ACTIVATE THE DOOR AND REQUESTED THE COMPANY REP TO OPEN IT. THE DOOR STILL WOULD NOT OPEN. THE COMPANY REP REQUESTED HELP FROM THE NEARBY FLIGHT ATTENDANT. THE BOARDING STEPS WERE INITIALLY FULLY AGAINST THE AIRCRAFT BUT WERE PULLED AWAY WHEN THE DOOR WOULD NOT CLEAR THE HANDRAILS OF THE BOARDING STEP. THE AIRFRAME HAS A CURVATURE AT THE L5 DOOR LOCATION. THE BOARDING STEP IS SQUARE SHAPED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO87FA053
- Event ID
- 20001213X31727
- Case number
- BFO87FA053
- 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, damage. 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: 115c37ee533ca5dd6904a1a9e8bc406b5bb9ad74427fafdadb8d4ae51781b492; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:13:46.485Z.