Continental Express Flight 3402
| Continental Express Flight 3402 | |
|---|---|
 A similar ATR 42 from the Continental Express |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | Propeller incident with personal injury |
| place |
Little Rock National Airport , Arkansas , United States
|
| date | July 28, 1999 |
| Survivors | 36 |
| Fatalities on the ground | 1 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type |
  ATR 42-500
|
| operator |
JetLink on behalf of Continental Express
|
| Mark |
N14451
|
| Departure airport |
George Bush Intercontinental Airport , Houston , Texas , United States
|
| Destination airport |
Little Rock National Airport , Little Rock , Arkansas , United States
|
| Passengers | 33 |
| crew | 3 |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
The Continental Express flight 3402 was a scheduled regional flight operated by JetLink on behalf of Continental Express , the regional division of Continental Airlines . The flight ran from George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston , Texas , to Little Rock National Airport in Little Rock , Arkansas . On July 28, 1999, an incident occurred on this flight when a member of the ground crew at Little Rock Airport ran into the running propeller of an ATR 42-500 (N14451) and died.
Airplane and occupants
The aircraft concerned was ATR 42-500, a model of the Italian-French consortium Avions de Transport Régional (ATR) founded by Aeritalia and Aérospatiale to build regional aircraft . The machine was 3 years and 1 month old at the time of the accident. It had the model serial number 512, was finally assembled at ATR's production site in Toulouse in 1986 and made its maiden flight on June 24, 1996. The machine was delivered to Continental Express on November 13, 1996 , where it received the aircraft registration number N14451 . The twin-engine regional airliner was with two turboprop engines of the type Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127E equipped.
33 passengers had taken the flight. The crew consisted of a flight captain, a first officer and a flight attendant.
the accident
That day the machine was used to fly from Houston , Texas to Little Rock . The flight, which started at 8:30 a.m., went without any special incidents; after landing at 11:27 a.m., the aircraft rolled to its parking position at Gate 7 of the airport, where the aircraft was already being operated by the ground staff and the Continental Express representative responsible for handling. 64 year old John Stults was expected.
Accident investigation
The incident was investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board . The occupants of the machine and members of the ground crew stated that Stults approached the machine from behind. While he was communicating via a radio attached to his shoulder, he ran towards the wing. Then he looked up at the people in the terminal. When he looked down again, he ran into the running propeller. The investigators came to the conclusion that Stults assumed that the left engine of the machine had been switched off after landing. This assumption was based on the usual procedures according to which pilots switched off the left engine after landing. Since the generator of the left engine was defective, it remained in operation. The machine was only slightly damaged in the incident and was released on the day of the accident.
Colleagues said in surveys that Stults was in a good mood that day and that he started his shift at 5:00 a.m. The medical examination of Stult's body was negative for drugs. An alcohol test showed a very low ethanol content , but this was attributed to post-mortem biochemical processes in the body.
After the accident
The aircraft remained in service with Continental Express for a few months after the accident. On June 9, 2000, the machine returned to ATR , where it was temporarily given the identification F-WQNI . On September 28, 2000, it was handed over to Air Botswana , where it operated as the A2-ABP with the name Makgadikgadi before it was decommissioned and taken to Toulouse-Francazal Airport on November 17, 2018 . Since February 2019 the machine with the Maltese aircraft registration 9H-AGX has been in use for a private operator whose identity is not known.
After the incident, Continental Express published a notice in which the area around the propeller was defined as a danger zone and in which it was once again expressly stated that this area should not be entered while the propellers are in operation.