Northwest Airlines Airbus Industrie A319-114 incident
Airbus Industrie A319-114 and Atlantic Coast Airlines Canadair CL-600-2B19 · Incident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC04IA152
- 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
- Incident
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Airbus Industrie A319-114
- Aircraft type
- Airbus A319
- 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
- N348NB
- Operator
- Northwest Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Manchester-Boston Regional Airport (MHT), Manchester, NHTo Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW), Detroit, MI
- 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
- 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
- Minor
Aircraft 2 · Canadair CL-600-2B19
- Aircraft type
- Canadair CL-600
- 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
- N668BR
- Operator
- Atlantic Coast Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Manchester-Boston Regional Airport (MHT), Manchester, NHTo Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD), Dulles, VA
- 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
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Clearance, misjudged
- Pilot of other aircraft › Clearance, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The two airplanes were cleared to taxi to runway 35 by air traffic control. The Canadair was cleared via taxiway "A" and "P." The Airbus was cleared via taxiway "A". Taxiway "A" extended parallel to runway 35/17, and taxiway "P" intersected taxiway "A," at a 45 degree angle, at the approach end of runway 35. The captain of the Airbus stated he observed the Canadair holding short of runway 35, on taxiway "P." He felt there was adequate clearance to safely taxi past the airplane, and in addition, he positioned the Airbus 2 to 3 feet to the right of the taxiway "A" centerline. The captain further stated that he thought the airplanes were clear of each other when the Airbus's left wing struck the Canadair's rudder. The Canadair flight crew reported that they were parked on taxiway "P," with the parking brake set, when they felt a "jolt." The trailing edge of the Canadair's rudder was struck near it's mid-point, and was penetrated forward about 90 percent of it's width. The Airbus sustained damage to it's left winglet and the strobe/navigation light assembly. A Federal Aviation Administration inspector reported that he measured the length of the Canadair back from the taxiway "P" hold-short line, and then measured perpendicular to the taxiway "A" centerline, half of the wing span of the Airbus. He noted that the Airbus would have required about an additional 8 feet, to clear the Canadair.
Probable cause
The Airbus captain's misjudged clearance, which resulted the left wing of the Airbus contacting the rudder of the stationary Canadair.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC04IA152
- Event ID
- 20040714X00969
- Case number
- NYC04IA152
- 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: 22cb83f8b6a8ddb9abdd345dc2148aaa50e8184af5dd3830d3d79346dfda468d; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:23:27.818Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N348NB; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, NWAA.