Skyway Airlines Flight 1020
Bombardier Inc CL-600-2B19 · Accident: ground collision while standing
From Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD) to Quad City International Airport (MLI)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN11LA051
- 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
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
- N709BR
- Operator
- Skyway Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD), Chicago, ILTo Quad City International Airport (MLI), Moline, 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
- 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 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was stopped on the ramp when it was struck by an unoccupied ground service pickup truck. The truck was previously driven and parked nose first against the terminal building. The driver reported that he put the truck into Park, exited it with the engine running, and did not apply the parking brake. Surveillance video shows the airplane on the ramp as the pickup truck went towards the terminal and disappeared from view. Approximately 18 seconds later, the truck is seen moving in reverse from the terminal building and across the ramp, passing about 100 to 150 feet in front of the airplane. The video also revealed that, while still moving in reverse, the truck made a 180-degree turn and headed towards the airplane. The airplane, which was moving, stopped just prior to the truck impacting the forward left side of the airplane.
A postaccident inspection of the truck revealed that the transmission shift cable was out of adjustment, which allowed the transmission to slip into reverse; the parking brake cable had also been disconnected. Additionally, the truck’s required maintenance inspection was 83.7 hours past due according to the truck's hour meter. Airline and airport procedure manuals state that vehicles are not to be left unattended with the engine running and that the parking brake must be set when a vehicle is parked. In addition, vehicles are required to be backed into designated parking spaces near buildings. Furthermore, the driver had not accomplished a complete user check of the truck at the beginning of his shift, as required by airline policy.
Probable cause
The pickup truck driver’s failure to follow airport and company policies regarding ground vehicle operations, which allowed for the unattended truck to collide with the airplane. Contributing to the accident were the truck's misadjusted shift lever and disconnected parking brake.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN11LA051
- Event ID
- 20101103X44221
- Case number
- CEN11LA051
- 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: 26495da9270c62a740cc8d835d21deae34b0ba6c610960ffb1072ca44761e976; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:32:18.248Z.