Mesaba Airlines Saab-Scania AB (Saab) SF340B accident
Saab-Scania AB (Saab) SF340B · Accident: propeller/rotor contact to person while standing
From Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM) to Tupelo Regional Airport (TUP)
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
- MIA02LA134
- 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
Saab-Scania AB (Saab) SF340B
- Aircraft type
- Saab Scania Ab (saab) SF340
- 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
- N403XJ
- Operator
- Mesaba Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM), Memphis, TNTo Tupelo Regional Airport (TUP), Tupelo, MS
- 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
- Propeller/rotor contact to person
- 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 › Diverted attention
- Ground personnel › Procedures/directives, not followed
- Ground personnel › Visual lookout, 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
According to numerous eyewitnesses, the airline ramp agent marshaled the arriving Saab-340B to its parking spot, chocked the nose wheel, and was in the process of delivering flight papers to the captain's access port when the papers blew out of her breast pocket. As she tried to retrieve the loose papers, her right hand contacted the winding down left propeller, and her thumb and two fingers were severed. Her manager characterized the cause as a case of impulse reactiveness on the part of the ramp agent in spite of having been trained on ground handling of the Saab 340 aircraft.
Probable cause
The failure of the ground agent to follow procedures and directives and to maintain a visual lookout due to a diversion of attention caused by paperwork being sucked toward the rotating propeller, resulting in collision between her hand and the propeller.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA02LA134
- Event ID
- 20020717X01153
- Case number
- MIA02LA134
- 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, 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: 3af408cd50e1f8fa32a285b11ca727cd7534804a45ea5becd60135288e1e6233; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:00:35.078Z.