Sky King Boeing 737-232 accident
Boeing 737-232 · Accident while standing
From Tunica Municipal Airport (UTA) to OKC Will Rogers World Airport (OKC)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW07LA155
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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 737-232
- 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
- N332DL
- Operator
- Sky King
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tunica Municipal Airport (UTA), Tunica, MSTo OKC Will Rogers World Airport (OKC), Oklahoma City, OK
- 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
- None
Cause areas
- Ground personnel › Condition(s)/step(s) in improper sequence
- Ground personnel › External load equipment, removed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The charter flight was preparing for departure for an on-demand air taxi flight. The operator reported that the flight had finished boarding all passengers and the portable airstairs had been pushed back; however, the engines were not running. The mechanic was directed to secure the cabin door to prevent additional rain from soaking the main entrance and galley area as an approaching storm created gusty winds and heavy rains.
Passengers seated on row 1 of the main cabin witnessed the mishap. The passengers reported that soon after boarding the airplane a "furious hard blowing rain had started." The forward cabin flight attendant attempted to close the cabin door then moved back to allow the mechanic to close it. The witness added that "suddenly his hand slipped from the door handle, his feet slipped from under him, and he fell out the doorway" onto the ramp.
Following the accident, the airline developed and implemented numerous safety enhancements, including revised procedures and training regarding portable airstairs and jet-bridge operations.
Probable cause
Gorund service personal's removal of the portable stairway prior to the main cabin door being secured. Factors were the high winds and heavy rain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW07LA155
- Event ID
- 20070718X00958
- Case number
- DFW07LA155
- 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: investigation status, coordinates, damage. 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: 06418d69a04344570524f94307f5c6b1d33cf7eca2ceb82671d45381b9a52174; retrieved 2026-09-18T12:55:01.977Z.