Pinnacle Airlines Flight 2544
Bombardier Inc CL-600-2B19 · Accident: ground collision while taxiing
From Gerald R. Ford International Airport (GRR) to Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's date. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA09FA011
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
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
- N8698A
- Operator
- Pinnacle Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gerald R. Ford International Airport (GRR), Grand Rapids, MITo Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW), Detroit, MI
- 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
- 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 collision
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On November 14, 2008, a Bombardier CL-600-2B19 was involved in a collision during taxi with a ground tug with a small luggage cart attached. The tug driver received minor injuries but none of the 17 passengers, two pilots and 1 flight attendant were injured. The airplane was substantially damaged. The weather at the time included a visibility of 4 miles in fog. It was dark with light rain at the time of the accident.
The ramp agent driving the tug stated that the left side curtain of his tug was open and the right side was covered with a fabric zip-on cover with a clear plastic panel for a window. He had his windshield wipers on. He did not see any aircraft prior to the collision. As he proceeded across an intersecting taxiway, he heard airplane engines nearby, and was surprised. He remembered seeing a glimpse of an airplane fuselage immediately before hearing a loud "crunch" noise prior to impacting the airplane.
Probable cause
The lack of vigilance on the part of the ramp agent driving the baggage tug. Contributing factors include the night conditions, and low visibility due to fog and rain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA09FA011
- Event ID
- 20081113X92722
- Case number
- DCA09FA011
- 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: de0e90020b8d76b68012bbefa6140300326382ba8f7a285333ee92b6a738bc1a; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:33:01.888Z.