Delta Airlines Flight 239
McDonnell Douglas MD-88 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) to William P. Hobby Airport (HOU)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW02LA199
- 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
McDonnell Douglas MD-88
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas MD-88
- 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
- N911DL
- Operator
- Delta Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Atlanta, GATo William P. Hobby Airport (HOU), Houston, TX
- 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After landing on runway 12R, the MD-88 aircraft was cleared by ground control to "cross runway 22 and taxi to the gate." The pilot taxied on taxiway Zulu, which is parallel to taxiway Yankee. Taxiway Zulu was closed due to construction; however, the construction was not posted on the ATIS, NOTAM's, or dispatcher's release from the company. The ground controller also failed to mention to the flight that taxiway Zulu was closed. The left wing of the taxiing air carrier collided with a parked forklift and a truck and trailer loaded with aluminum siding material while taxiing to gate 26. The pilot stated that he taxied the airplane on the centerline of the taxiway and he was not aware of the collision until he arrived at the terminal.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance with the parked vehicles. Factors contributing to the accident were the airport's failure to properly identify the construction area, their failure to publish a notice to airmen.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW02LA199
- Event ID
- 20020703X01048
- Case number
- FTW02LA199
- 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, coordinates. 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: 88449329185d529e23087626ec1a6d1cf7f3c6c25c0320286b9f1204eb3458b8; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:00:51.768Z.