Airtran Airways Flight 527
Boeing 717-200 · Accident: on ground/water collision with terrain/water while taxiing
From Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (KATL) to Frederick W. Smith International Airport (KMEM)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL07LA016
- 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 717-200
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 717
- 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
- N956AT
- Operator
- AirTran Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (KATL), Atlanta, GATo Frederick W. Smith International Airport (KMEM), Memphis, TN
- 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 terrain/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
It rained heavily prior to the flight's arrival; however, it was not raining at the time of the accident. The first officer landed the airplane and the captain took over the controls as the airplane slowed. The captained then exited at taxiway S4, and the local controller cleared the flight to cross runway 36C at Kilo. As the captain exited runway 36R, he asked the first officer "where is Kilo?" She responded "on the right," indicating that Kilo was to their right. As the captain crossed 36C and entered the junction of taxiways Kilo, Charlie, and Charlie 5 he saw that gate C16 was off of his left side. He saw the marshaller and turned left towards the gate. Both flight crew members did not realize that the airplane had rolled off the taxiway until they felt the nose landing gear impact a concrete drainage ditch. Examination of the accident site by a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector revealed that the airplane was located in the grass median off the right side of taxiway Charlie, approximately 250 feet south of taxiway Kilo. The nose landing gear assembly had collapsed and the forward pressure bulkhead was punctured. According to the Airport Safety and Certification Division, FAA Southern Region, all of the taxiway signs and taxiway lights were lit and working properly at the time of the accident. The taxiway edge markings were correct and the centerline was in place. The signs and markings were in accordance with the approved sign plan and Airport Certification Manual.
Probable cause
The captain's inadequate visual look out during taxi.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL07LA016
- Event ID
- 20061117X01683
- Case number
- ATL07LA016
- 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: 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 2006-11-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a8fce4677da830b8b42bb397cd1bb23628b9a4b35ff9999970d6c1b439852567; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:49:12.824Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N956AT; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, ZZDA.