Delta Air Lines Flight 442
Boeing 737 832 · Accident: aircraft servicing event before flight
From John F. Kennedy International Airport (KJFK) to Salt Lake City International Airport (KSLC)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA16CA211
- 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
- N3762Y
- 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
- About 15 years (built 2001)
- 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
- Prior to flight
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On August 9, 2016 at 2100 eastern daylight time, Delta Airlines as flight 442, a Boeing 737, N3762Y, was struck by a catering truck while parked at the gate during passenger boarding at John F Kennedy International Airport (JFK), Queens, New York. The impact resulted in substantial damage to the lower left fuselage of the airplane. The were no injuries to the six crewmembers, 160 passengers, or two ground service personnel. Weather was reported as night visual conditions. The ground crew reported that the truck had problems with the handbrake and jumped the chock, impacting the airplane. The flight was operating under 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 as a regularly scheduled passenger flight from JFK to Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), Salt Lake City, Utah.
Probable cause
inadvertent collision by ground service vehicle.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA16CA211
- Event ID
- 20160811X81653
- Case number
- DCA16CA211
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2016-08-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 73faebcafb86da9b9541471ab6e45804cbdcfca531013e9ec00bd4391dbb9129; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:08:52.118Z.