United Airlines Flight 395
Boeing 767-300 · Accident while standing
From Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) to Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC06LA151
- 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
Boeing 767-300
- 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
- N653UA
- Operator
- United Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD), Sterling, VATo Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD), Chicago, IL
- 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 · engine(s) not operating
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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 › 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 airplane was at the gate with the crew and passengers onboard, the parking brake was set, and the loading bridge was retracted. A ramp employee, operating a tractor with a baggage cart in tow, was on the left side of the airplane when a pushback guideman on the right side of the airplane signaled that he needed hand wands for the pushback. Forgetting he had a baggage cart in tow, the driver drove under the fuselage to reach the guideman. In the process, the baggage cart impacted the underside of the fuselage about 25 feet aft of the nose and 17 feet in front of the wings. The driver subsequently stated to company officials that he did not follow standard operating procedures when he drove under the fuselage, and that, while trying to ensure an on-time departure, he forgot he had the baggage cart attached to the tractor. The driver was current on all required training.
Probable cause
The driver's failure to follow company standard operating procedures. A factor was the driver's diverted attention to an on-time departure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC06LA151
- Event ID
- 20060720X00974
- Case number
- NYC06LA151
- 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: a349e27003c1932b09057fd0d10edc93f35883d86c315bdeeb217bad83527081; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:52:17.241Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N653UA; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, UALA.