United Airlines Boeing 757-200 accident
Boeing 757-200 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while standing
From Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA) to Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA02LA049
- 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 757-200
- 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
- N589UA
- Operator
- United Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA), Seattle, WATo Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD), Chigago, 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
- Standing · engine(s) 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
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After completing deicing procedures on a company Boeing 757-200, the driver of the deicing truck maneuvered his truck in a manner that caused the deicing basket boom to impact the trailing edge of the aircraft's left aileron. The boom penetrated the aileron to a depth of almost two feet and damaged its spar. The investigation revealed that while backing out from his position behind the aircraft's left wing, the driver had inadvertently turned his steering wheel in a direction that caused the boom, which is mounted on the back end of the truck, to converge on the trailing edge of the aileron.
Probable cause
The failure of the deicing truck driver to insure that the deicing basket boom remained clear of the aircraft structure as he backed away from the position he had been in while performing deicing procedures.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA02LA049
- Event ID
- 20020311X00325
- Case number
- SEA02LA049
- 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: 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: 53e34b6c1ce33602ad5a0184e9d6e3a1af6b1e79f73040405aa402a8276976cc; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:05:12.983Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N589UA; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, UALA.