PSA Airlines Bombardier, Inc. CL-600-2C10 accident
Bombardier, Inc. CL-600-2C10 and Bombardier, Inc. CL-600-2B19 · Accident: ground handling event during pushback
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC08LA234
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Bombardier, Inc. CL-600-2C10
- 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
- N725PS
- Operator
- PSA Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT), Charlotte, NCTo Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD), Dulles, VA
- 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
- Pushback/towing
- 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
- Ground handling event
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · Bombardier, Inc. CL-600-2B19
- 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
- N228PS
- Operator
- PSA Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT), Charlotte, NCTo Fayetteville Regional Airport - Grannis Field (FAY), Fayetteville, NC
- 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
- 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
- Ground handling event
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A CRJ 200 had completed the pushback process and was waiting for taxi clearance. A CRJ 700 was being pushed back from another gate, with a wing walker stationed at the left wing. The wing walker was aware of the CRJ 200, and when the pushback commenced, he believed that the tugdriver was only going to pushback the airplane about 10 feet. As the tugdriver continued to push the airplane past 10 feet, the wing walker signaled the tugdriver to stop. Witnesses observed the wing walker signaling the tugdriver to stop as the tugdriver continued to push the airplane. The tail section of the CRJ 700 struck the tail section of the CRJ 200, which resulted in substantial damage to the empennages of both airplanes. Due to lightning in the vicinity of airport, ground crewmembers were not using headsets.
Probable cause
The tugdriver and wing walker's lack of communication and the tugdriver's failure to properly monitor the wing walker. Contributing to the accident was the lightning in the vicinity of the airport, which resulted in the ground crewmembers not wearing headsets.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC08LA234
- Event ID
- 20080720X01081
- Case number
- NYC08LA234
- 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. 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: f942baad5ddd715731720a535f314448be259b7162f448f325a2a45582db0066; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:13:46.463Z.