Delta Air Lines Boeing 737 832 accident
Boeing 737 832 · Accident: ground handling event while standing
From John F. Kennedy International Airport (KJFK) to Salt Lake City International Airport (KSLC)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA10CA075
- 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 737 832
- 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
- N3730B
- Operator
- Delta Air Lines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John F. Kennedy International Airport (KJFK), New York, NYTo Salt Lake City International Airport (KSLC), Salt Lake City, UT
- 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
- 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
- Environmental issues › Operating environment
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to a company flight safety investigator, the aircraft was parked at the gate while the first officer and four flight attendants were aboard preparing for the upcoming flight. Baggage handlers on the ramp were loading baggage onto the aircraft when the jet blast from a taxing Boeing 767-400ER blew an empty baggage cart from its parked position, which collided with the left side of the aft service panel, causing a 15 by 18 in puncture through the aircraft skin and severing two stringers.According to the baggage handler, after he had staged the empty baggage cart into location among two other carts, he "made sure that it was locked" by giving the cart a "push" from the left side. He stated that the cart did not "budge" after he pushed it. A video of the accident showed the cart being blown from the jet blast as it travelled across the ramp and impacted the left side of the aircraft. The other two baggage carts remained unmoved.
Probable cause
a baggage cart impacting the airplane and causing substantial damage as a result of the jet blast from a passing airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA10CA075
- Event ID
- 20100714X63624
- Case number
- DCA10CA075
- 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: f89de3b8db3aaa98771104a04aecc028133a56c3e5260b7b64c755c0d36e3a87; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:41:51.243Z.