Freight Runners Express Embraer EMB 120ER RT accident
Embraer EMB 120ER RT · Accident: aircraft loading event while standing
From Greeley–Weld County Airport (GXY) to University Oxford Airport (UOX)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17LA350
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Embraer EMB 120ER RT
- Aircraft type
- Embraer EMB-120
- 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
- N121CZ
- Operator
- Freight Runners Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Greeley–Weld County Airport (GXY), Greeley, COTo University Oxford Airport (UOX), Oxford, MS
- Aircraft age
- About 18 years (built 1999)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 loading 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane, which was operating as a nonscheduled domestic passenger flight, was standing on a ramp during dark night conditions waiting for the flight's passengers to arrive by bus; the flight crew was onboard the airplane. The only airport employee on duty opened the gate, told the bus driver to drop the passengers next to the airplane, and then returned to previous duties. The bus driver reported that there was no lighting on the ramp when he drove the bus onto it. He added that he made a right turn around the back of the airplane and "didn't see the wing." At that point, he was unable to stop the bus before it hit the wing. Although the bus driver reported that there was no light on the back of the wing, a video of the ramp area showed that the vertical portion of the T-tail was illuminated and that the airplane position lights were illuminated.
The bus driver possessed current commercial passenger-carrying vehicle operational and medical certifications. The driver did not have vision problems. The driver stated that he was not using his cell phone at the time of the crash. A review of the driver's 72-hour activity history did not reveal any irregularities. The driver's postaccident toxicological testing results were negative for the tests performed. Given these facts, it is likely that the unescorted driver failed to maintain clearance from the airplane during the planeside delivery of passengers in dark night conditions. The lack of an airport employee to escort the bus to the side of the airplane likely contributed to the accident. After the accident, the operator stated that it would make a policy that drivers be guided to airplanes by a ground guide. If a ground guide was not available, the drivers would not be permitted to drop passengers planeside.
Probable cause
The bus driver's failure to maintain clearance from the standing airplane during dark night conditions. Contributing to the accident was the airport's lack of an escort for the bus.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN17LA350
- Event ID
- 20170914X93121
- Case number
- CEN17LA350
- 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 2017-09-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d38cd143d7aee15da2e71288dba7f6ab980d79ad6157d0560ff9c124148ef25f; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:50:41.469Z.