SkyWest Airlines Flight 6261
Bombardier CL600 2B19 · Accident: aircraft servicing event while standing
From San Francisco International Airport (KSFO) to Eugene Airport (KEUG)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA12CA035
- 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 CL600 2B19
- Aircraft type
- Bombardier CL600
- 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
- N912SW
- Operator
- SkyWest Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Francisco International Airport (KSFO), San Francisco, CATo Eugene Airport (KEUG), Eugene, OR
- 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
- Aircraft servicing 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On February 3, 2012, about 1717 Pacific daylight time, SkyWest Airlines flight 6261, a Bombardier CL600-2B19, N912SW, was impacted by a belt loader at San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco, California, while parked at the gate and ready for pushback. There were no injuries to the passengers or crew members onboard and the airplane sustained substantial damage. The flight was operating under the provisions of 14 CFR Part 121 as a scheduled domestic passenger flight to Mahlon Sweet Field Airport, Eugene, Oregon.
After the boarding process was complete, the flight crew was informed that a belt loader had struck the airplane. According to the operator, the driver of the belt loader that had been parked at the rear cargo door believed there was sufficient room between the loader and the airplane to make a forward right turn instead of backing up. However, the front left corner of the loader impacted the airplane during the turn and caused substantial damage to the skin, stringers and a frame.
Probable cause
the driver's failure to ensure that the belt loader was clear of the airplane before turning.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA12CA035
- Event ID
- 20120207X34555
- Case number
- DCA12CA035
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2012-02-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f25f0b88a614159f1d21b40c75cd1de19f20e68c7490b0916c7fc7e4e15120d3; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:11:29.199Z.