McDonnell Douglas MD-80 N954AS

Summary

On 6 December 1996 at about 00:00 local time, a McDonnell Douglas MD-80 registered N954AS was involved in an incident near Anchorage, Alaska, United States. 112 people were on board and nobody was injured. The aircraft was slightly damaged. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

6 December 1996 at 00:00

Classification

Incident

Location

Anchorage, Alaska, United States

Nearest airport

Anchorage International (ANC)

Coordinates

61.1598, -149.9906

Aircraft

McDonnell Douglas MD-80

Registration

N954AS

Category

Airplane

Engines

2

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 121: Air Carrier

Purpose of flight

Unknown

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Unknown → Seattle

Aircraft damage

Minor

Weather

VMC

Light

Night/Dark

NTSB number

ANC97IA011

Nobody was injured.

The ground crew's failure to maintain communication with the flight crew while loading cargo after pushback and engine start, and the ground and flightcrew's failure to follow the procedure outlined in their manuals concerning use of marshallers during pushback and waveoff signals by the groundcrew and flightcrew.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

The airplane was pushed back from the gate, the tug was disconnected, and the engines were started. The push back tug drove away to the gate. Another tug towing a baggage cart with 3 pieces of late cargo drove up to the mid cargo compartment on the right side of the airplane. The baggage tug driver and the right side wing walker began to load the cargo in the mid section cargo compartment. One piece of cargo would not fit. They began to carry the cargo to the forward cargo compartment. The left side wing walker, who had been standing in front of the airplane and was considered to be the marshaller, walked to the forward cargo bin and opened the door and began to assist in the loading. The airplane began taxiing and the right wing struck the tug which had parked in front of the right wing. The ground mashaller did not give a wave off to the flight crew, nor did he alert the flight crew that additional cargo was to be loaded as required by the flight operations manual and the customer services manual. The flight crew did not receive nor did they give a salute to anyone. They did not use their nose wheel taxi light to signal anyone as stated in their flight operations manual.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.