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Atlas / NTSB / DCA15CA176

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event DCA15CA176

2015-08-23 Oakland, California, United States Airport · KOAK Serious 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N232WN

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

BOEING 737-7H4

Year of manufacture

2006 · 9 years old at event

TCDS

A16WE · THE BOEING CO

Engine

CFM INTL. CFM56 SERIES (2200 hp)

Seats / Engines

143 seats · 2 engines

Last airworthiness date

20060302

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A211EF

Registrant of record

SOUTHWEST AIRLINES CO

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

inadvertent jet blast, resulting in debris striking ground operations personnel.

Factual narrative

On August 23, 2015, at Metro Oakland Airport (OAK), Oakland, California, a ground operations specialist received serious injury after being struck by a component of a service golf cart which had been blown by jet blast. Southwest Airlines (SWA) flight 1995 had pushed back from gate 26 and was beginning to taxi. Ground operations personnel were servicing another SWA aircraft parked one gate over, at gate 28. One of their golf carts was parked near the rear of aircraft. As SWA1995 began to taxi and turn to exit the alley way, the jet blast struck the roof of the golf cart which separated and hit one of the ground operations personnel. He was transported to the hospital and diagnosed with a broken knee cap. On August 23, 2015, at Metro Oakland Airport (OAK), Oakland, California, a ground operations specialist received serious injury after being struck by a component of a service golf cart which had been blown by jet blast.  Southwest Airlines (SWA) flight 1995 had pushed back from gate 26 and was beginning to taxi. Ground operations personnel were servicing another SWA aircraft parked one gate over, at gate 28.  One of their golf carts was parked near the rear of aircraft. As SWA1995 began to taxi and turn to exit the alley way, the jet blast struck the roof of the golf cart which separated and hit one of the ground operations personnel. He was transported to the hospital and diagnosed with a broken knee cap. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • C Aircraft-Aircraft handling/service-Towing and taxiing-Taxiing-Incorrect use/operation - C

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2015_DCA15CA176.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (icing). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗