JetBlue Airways Flight 618
Embraer ERJ 190-100 IGW · Accident: ground handling event while standing
From Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP) to John F. Kennedy International Airport (KJFK)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA23LA191
- 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
- Unknown
Embraer ERJ 190-100 IGW
- Aircraft type
- Embraer ERJ-190
- 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
- N337JB
- Operator
- JetBlue Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP), Minneapolis -St. Paul International, MNTo John F. Kennedy International Airport (KJFK), Queens, NY
- Aircraft age
- About 12 years (built 2011)
- 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 · engine(s) 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
- Ground handling event
- 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
On February 24, 2023, about 20:30 eastern standard time, an Embraer E190, operated by JetBlue Airways as flight 618 from Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport (MSP), Minneapolis, Minnesota to John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), had a ground service agent sustain second degree burns while connecting ground electrical power to the airplane after it blocked into Gate 5, at Terminal 5. According to the ground service agent, after connecting the ground power unit (GPU) he noted that electrical power was not being supplied to the airplane, so he went back to the connection point to confirm that power was on when suddenly the connection between the GPU and the airplane sparked and his right shirt sleeve caught fire and his wrist was burned.
Probable cause
Electrical sparking caused by a faulty connection between the aircraft and ground power unit resulting in a serious injury to a ground service agent.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA23LA191
- Event ID
- 20230301106804
- Case number
- DCA23LA191
- 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, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2023-02-25.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a6f99e8db730394c5e47f7fb705351291aa518bbc3109dc7c095af632a9b8090; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:22:54.779Z.