Mesaba Aviation Flight 3427
Bombardier Inc CL600-2D24 · Incident while taxiing
From Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP) to Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI08IA119
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Bombardier Inc CL600-2D24
- Aircraft type
- Bombardier CL600
- 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
- N918XJ
- Operator
- Mesaba Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP), Minneapolis, MNTo 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
- Taxi · to runway
- Defining eventThe 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight crew was taxiing the airplane to the runway for departure. The auxiliary power unit had been shut down. The airplane accelerated to cross a runway and was rolling on a taxiway when both engines stopped producing power. The incident flight was part of the captain's initial operating experience as a captain on the CL600. At the time of the incident, the captain had accumulated six hours of total flight time in the CL600. The captain had previously been a pilot on Saab 340 turboprop airplanes. The power lever on the Saab 340 can be moved forward into the ground idle and flight idle positions and rearward into the reverse position. The Saab 340 power lever has a latch that is designed to be lifted to allow the power lever below flight idle. The thrust levers on the CL600 can be moved forward into the idle, climb, takeoff, go-around, and maximum power positions and rearward into the shut off position. The CL600 thrust lever is designed with a latch that has to be lifted to allow movement of the thrust lever into the shut off position. The flight data recorder showed that an application of power occurred about ten seconds from the end of the recording. The recorder shows an engine thrust lever going to the shutoff position near the end of the recording.
Probable cause
The flying pilot's incorrect use of the thrust lever leading to the dual engine shutdown during taxi. Contributing to the incident was the flying pilot's lack of total experience in the make and model of airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI08IA119
- Event ID
- 20080506X00598
- Case number
- CHI08IA119
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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, 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: b0fef91b5b8d4069e7aa1b6abbdd9578442893a3c1346310ca6c450a24e0b1a4; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:36:25.302Z.