Drelat Air Lines McDonnell Douglas MD90 - 30 accident
McDonnell Douglas MD90 - 30 · Accident: landing gear collapse during pushback
From Boston Logan International Airport (KBOS) to Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's operator. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA14CA093
- 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
McDonnell Douglas MD90 - 30
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas MD90
- 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
- N933DN
- Operator
- Drelat Air Lines Narrative disagrees
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Boston Logan International Airport (KBOS), Boston, MATo Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP), Minneapolis, MN
- Aircraft age
- About 17 years (built 1997)
- 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
- Pushback/towing · engine 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
- Landing gear collapse
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On May 12, 2014, at about 1737 eastern daylight time (EDT), Delta Airlines flight 1612, a Boeing MD-90, N933DN, experienced a partially collapsed nose gear during pushback from the gate at Boston Logan International Airport (KBOS), Boston, Massachusetts. The passengers and crew exited the aircraft via the jet bridge and there were no injuries. The flight was operating as a 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 regularly scheduled passenger flight between KBOS and Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport (KMSP), Minneapolis, Minnesota.
According to the flight crew, during pushback they received a new route clearance due to weather along the route. The captain and first officer discussed how they would handle the associated tasks, and agreed they would load the new route and then contact dispatch after the engine start had been accomplished. The crew stated the interphone conversation quality was degraded due to low volume, and there was considerable radio traffic on both clearance delivery and ramp frequencies. As the flight crew finished coordinating tasks, the captain heard on the interphone what he believed was "set brakes" and, because he did not discern any aircraft motion, began to apply the brakes. The airplane immediately shook and several warnings went off in cockpit.
According to the tug operator, while at the gate he received brakes released and clear to push from the flight crew, and he proceeded to push the airplane off of the gate and to the area where it was clear to start engines. As they airplane approached the engine start spot, the tug operator stated "cleared to start", and the airplane immediately stopped, and the tug operator saw the airplane nose immediately drop and the nose gear partially collapse. Further inspection revealed the airplane sustained substantial damage to the nose landing gear assembly.
Probable cause
the captain's failure to verify the communications between himself and the tug operator, which resulted in him applying of brakes while the airplane was being pushed back from the gate by the tug with tow bar attached.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA14CA093
- Event ID
- 20140515X92350
- Case number
- DCA14CA093
- 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, coordinates. 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: 284ec2eb5b1f5f65f9a69fdc0b459e6451a9cb7e27d339a05dd594a63e5b7048; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:37:51.528Z.