United Airlines Flight 153
Boeing 757-222 · Accident during pushback
From Indianapolis International Airport (IND) to Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's injuries. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI01LA331
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 757-222
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 757
- 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
- N570UA
- Operator
- United Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Indianapolis International Airport (IND), Indianapolis, INTo Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD), Chicago, IL
- 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
- 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
- Crew/group coordination › Inadequate
- Pilot in command › Parking brakes, not set
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane rolled forward when it was disconnected from its tow, pinning and seriously injuring a wing walker. Hand signals were being used rather than headphones during the night push back. The wing walker stated that the hand signal to set brakes was given to the captain who in turn returned the set brakes hand signal. According to the captain, the last hand signal that he saw was to start engines. After starting the number one engine, the first officer felt the airplane move forward. The first officer stated that he asked the captain if the parking brake was supposed to be set at which time the captain looked down and set it. The tug driver signaled a problem and the engine was shut down. The airplane's Before Start Checklist stipulates the setting of the parking brake before engine start.
Probable cause
the inadequate crew/group coordination and the parking brakes not set by the pilot in command.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI01LA331
- Event ID
- 20011004X02036
- Case number
- CHI01LA331
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2001-09-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 13c24a90cd6ec6566e6b7a1290579a6cb09b14902841566a67550caba55c4ffe; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:09:31.543Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N570UA; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, UALA.