US Airways Express Flight 4997
Beech 1900D · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From Syracuse Hancock International Airport (SYR) to Bradley International Airport (BDL)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC04LA099
- 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
Beech 1900D
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 1900
- 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
- N149CJ
- Operator
- US Airways Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Syracuse Hancock International Airport (SYR), Syracuse, NYTo Bradley International Airport (BDL), Windsor Locks, CT
- 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
- Driver of vehicle › 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, and while taxiing to the ramp at night, the airplane's left engine and fuselage was struck by a fuel truck. Witness statements did not reveal headlights illuminated on the fuel truck. Weather at the time of the accident included light rain and mist with 2 miles visibility. The Airport Ramp Rules and Regulations, stated in part: "All vehicles shall always relinquish right-of-way to any aircraft moving under its own power or under tow, except emergency conditions," and "all vehicles will have lights on during the hours between dusk and dawn and during periods of low visibility."
Probable cause
The fuel truck driver's failure to maintain clearance with a taxiing airplane, resulting in the collision between the fuel truck and the airplane. A factor in the accident was the night condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC04LA099
- Event ID
- 20040408X00430
- Case number
- NYC04LA099
- 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: d88eee644770ed86c7ffdc08866b700b92df6045165178e8e5235b1229eb8705; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:28:10.264Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N149CJ; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.