SkyWest Airlines Flight 6522
Bombardier Inc CL-600-2B19 · Incident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) while standing
From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11IA019
- 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
- Visual 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
- N938SW
- Operator
- SkyWest Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Los Angeles, CATo Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX), Phoenix, AZ
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight crew reported that, at the completion of the flight, the airplane taxied to the arrival gate, and ground personnel attempted to open the airplane's main passenger cabin door. The airplane had been dispatched with the main cabin door's power-assist motor inoperative, which was deferred via company maintenance procedures and the minimum equipment list. Ground personnel were unable to open the door and received assistance from the captain. Initially, the captain was unable to open the door, which was jammed in the closed position. After several attempts, the captain exerted a large force with his shoulder and was able to get the door to open. When the main cabin door was finally opened, it traveled beyond its normal extension limits and hit the pavement. The power-assist motor cable was found lodged within the door assembly.
Probable cause
The overextension of the main cabin door due to difficulty opening the door because the power-assist motor cable was lodged within the main cabin door assembly.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11IA019
- Event ID
- 20101019X33258
- Case number
- WPR11IA019
- 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: f0118df20c9166796b07d5daa167c95667810bbe0bf943bc8cc8055e1c99e610; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:29:35.236Z.