Ground
Ramp operations: parking, boarding, servicing, refuelling, maintenance, pushback and towing.
Ground occurrences include fires during refuelling or servicing, evacuation injuries, ground-handling damage that later becomes an airworthiness problem, and events during maintenance ground runs.
Pushback and tow are recorded here rather than under Taxi. The aircraft is moved by a tug, and the recurring fatal pattern is a ground crew member on foot beside a moving gear or tug, often tethered by a headset cord.
Related terms
Manoeuvring on the ground under the aircraft's own power. The phase where runway incursions happen. Pushback and towing are recorded as Ground, not Taxi.
An engineering or maintenance action (a part fitted wrongly, an inspection missed, a repair done off-manual) contributed to the accident.