Delta Air Lines McDonnell Douglas MD-88 accident
McDonnell Douglas MD-88 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during pushback
From Denver International Airport (DEN) to Cincinnati Municipal Airport Lunken Field (LUK)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN03FA070
- 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
- N974DL
- Operator
- Delta Air Lines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Denver International Airport (DEN), DenverTo Cincinnati Municipal Airport Lunken Field (LUK), Cincinnati, OH
- 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
- Loss of control on ground/water
- 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
- Flightcrew › Aircraft control, 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 Delta Air Lines, the airplane arrived at 0951. The airplane was scheduled to depart at 1100, but was delayed due to the previous flight crews' report of a take off slat warning light indication problem. A maintenance check was completed and pushback for the next flight occurred at 1206. At 1224, while the crew was completing the pre-take off checks during the taxi, the captain reported another take off slat warning light indication problem. Maintenance requested that the captain return the airplane to the gate so a technician could reexamine the fault. At 1241, a maintenance technician assessed the problem and stated to the captain that "were gonna [sic] have to mess up with your takeoff condition here and you know after we do this, you're not supposed to move anything." The captain stated "right." The maintenance check procedures required that "either or both" engine throttles to be advanced to verify the operation of the warning horn. The operation of the system was verified and the slats were set in the takeoff configuration. During the entire maintenance check, the captain and first officer remained seated. At 1251, the first officer called for and received pushback clearance. The engines were started during pushback, and the captain stated that "prior to the engine start sequence, I did not direct re-accomplishment of the before start checklist." The captain said "the pushback and initial stages of the engine start sequence appeared normal." However, shortly after engine start and with the tug still attached, the airplane began to move forward under its own power. At that time, the captain noticed that the throttles were still advanced. The captain and first officer both reached to pull the engine throttles back to idle, but the airplane had moved forward enough to cause the tug and tow bar to jackknife to the left, striking the airplane and leaving a 4-foot long gash in the fuselage. The captain shut down the engines, secured the cockpit, and assessed the situation.
Probable cause
the flight crew's failure to maintain aircraft control, which resulted in engine start with the throttles advanced and the subsequent impact with the tug. Contributing factors include, the flight crew's improper procedures/directives and failure to re-accomplish the before start checklist, the captain's diverted attention, the manufacturer's inadequate MEL procedures, the manufacturer's insufficiently defined conditions/steps, and the tug.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN03FA070
- Event ID
- 20030501X00608
- Case number
- DEN03FA070
- 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, 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: 0908c6b49a830f21d41675a2f9e669570fc3ccabedad580f6087b71aaf40d62d; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:50:22.212Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N974DL; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.