Envoy Air Flight 4265
Embraer S A ERJ 170-200 LR · Accident: communication system malfunction/failure during pushback
From an unrecorded airport to Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA22LA015
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
Embraer S A ERJ 170-200 LR
- Aircraft type
- Embraer ERJ-170
- 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
- N252NN
- Operator
- Envoy Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU), Raleigh/Durham, NC
- Aircraft age
- About 4 years (built 2017)
- 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
- Communication system malfunction/failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Envoy flight 4265 experienced a jolt during pushback and a flight attendant broke a wrist. According to the captain, after the “Before Start Checklist” was completed, the flightcrew was connected to the ground crew push-tug operator for push-back via the interphone. The push-tug operator informed him that he was ready for the captain to release the parking brake, and upon the captain doing so, the push began. During the final push, when the airplane transitioned from reverse to forward, the captain said that the communications connection with the ground crew deteriorated, and he believed he heard the push-tug operator say “set parking brake”, when actually the push-tug operator was directing the flight crew to start engines. The captain said that as a result he applied the parking brake while the tug operator was pulling the airplane forward, which resulted in a sudden jerk. The captain also said that the push-tug operator was difficult to understand because of his accent, which combined with the faulty interphone connection, resulted in the miscommunication. At the time of the event, two flight attendants (FA) were in the aisle performing the passenger safety demonstration. No. 1 FA was thrown against seat 4D, and No. 2 FA was thrown to the floor, hitting her head, back, and wrist, and was unable to stand. The airplane was towed back to the gate, and the No. 2 FA was taken to a local hospital where she was diagnosed with a fractured left wrist.
Probable cause
An abrupt jerk of the airplane as the captain applied the parking brake during the tow that caused a flight attendant to fall and break her wrist.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA22LA015
- Event ID
- 20211025104161
- Case number
- DCA22LA015
- 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, damage. 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: d95bd96a0a396367eb6f8801caaa77d959e90fb20687d19e7c76e2202f6416a2; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:42:01.132Z.