United Parcel Service Boeing 767-300ER incident
Boeing 767-300ER and Continental Airlines Boeing B737-924 · Incident: collision between aircraft (not in flight) while taxiing
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW06IA025
- 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 · Boeing 767-300ER
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 767
- 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
- N319UP
- Operator
- United Parcel Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport (SDF), Louisville, KYTo George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH), 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
- Collision between aircraft (not in flight)
- 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 · Boeing B737-924
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- 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
- N32404
- Operator
- Continental Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sacramento International Airport (SMF), Sacramento, CATo George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH), 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
- Standing · idling rotors
- 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
- Collision between aircraft (not in flight)
- 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
- Flightcrew of other aircraft › Clearance, not maintained
- 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
A cargo freighter was taxiing after landing to its loading area when it struck a parked airline passenger airplane that was waiting to enter its gate area. The cargo airplane was on the airport ground control frequency when the captain observed the airliner parked inside the double yellow lines, but he felt that the airplane was clear of its path. The passenger airplane was reported to be holding short of the gate due to traffic congestion in the gate area, with one engine running and monitoring its company ramp control frequency. The mishap occurred in the early evening, during the hours of darkness. After the collision, the airline passengers were deplaned via an airstair on to the ramp and then transported to the terminal. According to a current letter of agreement between the tower and the airport, this area of the ramp was established as a "non-movement area, " which is not under the control of the tower, including line markings. Neither airline had issued a notice to airmen (NOTAM) to its pilots regarding this area.
Probable cause
The captain's failure to maintain clearance from a parked airplane awaiting for a gate. A contributing factor was that taxi procedures were not issued by ground control to advise the captain that the ramp area where he was taxing was designated as a non-movement area and not under the tower's control. Another factor was that company notices to airmen (NOTAMS) were not issued to advise their pilots that tarmac markings in that particular ramp area were not accurate, and that the area was a non-movement area not under the control of the tower.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW06IA025
- Event ID
- 20060109X00026
- Case number
- DFW06IA025
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2005-12-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 520390826fb64b9fab95ac76830f2acc0356fccc870a1fb70b0b72b4583c751f; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:56:51.792Z.