United Airlines Flight 605

On March 6, 2026, about 1024 mountain standard time (MST), United Airlines (UAL) flight 605, a Boeing 737-824, N27213, collided with two Vestergaard Elephant Beta deice trucks, operated by Aeromag, while taxiing out of the deice pad at Denver International Airport (DEN), Denver, Colorado. There were no injuries to the two pilots, 4 flight attendants, and 130 passengers onboard the airplane. One deice agent sustained minor injuries during the event. The airplane sustained substantial damage. Flight 605 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight operating under the provisions of Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 from DEN to Nashville International Airport (BNA), Nashville, Tennessee. According to the flight crew statements, they were parked at deice pad C, spot C5, while deicing procedures occurred. The flight crew stated they were engaged in a conversation, when the first officer heard the deice team communicate their post-deice briefing. The captain was unsure if the clearance was for their flight, but the first officer acknowledged the post-deice brief and readback pertinent details, specifically that all deice vehicles were behind the clearance lines. The flight crew conducted the post-deice checks and received clearance to taxi from air traffic control. The flight crew began to taxi and felt the aircraft collide with something. The flight crew stopped the aircraft and contacted the deice team on the radio. At that time, the flight crew was informed that they had not been cleared to exit the deice pad and that they had collided with two deice trucks. According to the Aeromag deice team, flight 605 was being sprayed with type 4 fluid from four of their trucks, MAG 94 and MAG 95 were forward of the wings and MAG 28 and MAG 30 were aft of the wings. The deice agents observed the airplane beginning to move forward and no one was able to stop the airplane movement. The airplane struck trucks MAG 94 (left wing) and MAG 95 (right wing), resulting in MAG 95 being pushed onto its side.

Figure 1. Image of the left winglet damage and truck MAG 94 and truck MAG 95 on it side forward of the right wing. (Source: United Airlines) A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed damage to the left winglet, the left wing lower skin, slats number 1, 5, 6, 7, and 8, the right wing lower skin, and the right aileron.

Figure 2. Right wing aileron damage. Damage in the red circle on the left, is enlarged on the right. (Source: United Airlines) As part of the investigation process, the NTSB invited qualified parties to participate in the investigation, including the Federal Aviation Adminstration and United Airlines. In accordance with the provisions of Annex 13 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, the Transporation Safety Board (TSB) of Canada was notified and Aeromag, a Canadian based ground service provider, was invited to participate in the investigation as a technical advisor. The following NTSB specialists were assigned to investigate the accident: Operations, Human Performance, Airport Operations, Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), and Flight Data Recorder (FDR) were assigned. The investigaiton is ongoing.

Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset