Mesa Airlines Bombardier, Inc. CL-600-2D24 accident
Bombardier, Inc. CL-600-2D24 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX06LA154
- 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
Bombardier, Inc. CL-600-2D24
- Aircraft type
- Bombardier 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
- N909FJ
- Operator
- Mesa Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Harry Reid International Airport (LAS), Las Vegas, NVTo Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), Dallas, 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 · to 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
- Airport equipment, ground support › Other
- Ground personnel › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airliner was struck by a loose string of baggage carts while taxiing for departure. The airplane was traveling down a taxiway toward the active runway, and upon reaching an intersection, the captain noticed a loose string of baggage carts moving rapidly toward the airplane in an angled path from left to right. He swerved the airplane to the right of the centerline in an effort to avoid collision with the baggage carts. The lead rolling baggage cart struck the airplane's left wing, and the airplane traveled about 150 feet further down the taxiway before coming to a complete stop. The lead baggage cart came to rest wedged between the wing and taxiway surface. The airplane sustained substantial damage. The string of carts came from the direction of the concourse D gates 10 through 14. The baggage carts were equipped with a manual towbar actuated front two-wheel brake system. The parking brake is designed to activate by the operator raising the towbar to the vertical position. To release the parking brake, the brake/towbar-latch is pushed down by foot while the top of the tow bar is pushed inward toward the cart until the brake/towbar-latch is unhooked. Northwest Airlines, the owner of runaway carts, issued an employee memorandum after the accident reiterating the importance of ensuring that the braking system is engaged when leaving carts unattended.
Probable cause
The failure of ground service personnel to properly set the parking brake on the lead baggage cart.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX06LA154
- Event ID
- 20060510X00542
- Case number
- LAX06LA154
- 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 2006-05-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0229855cd11f6fc9807db93268f41e60fe78d8e2cea82cbeaef35673f83f82e2; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:53:40.163Z.