Delta Airlines Boeing 767-332 accident
Boeing 767-332 · Accident: abrupt maneuver while maneuvering
From Vienna International Airport (VIE) to Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA99LA272
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Boeing 767-332
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 767
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N196DN
- Operator
- Delta Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Vienna International Airport (VIE), VIENNA/AUSTRIATo Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Atlanta, GA
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 121: Air Carrier
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Maneuvering
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Abrupt maneuver
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Atc personnel(dep/apch) › Approach/departure control service, improper
- Atc personnel(dep/apch) › Crew/group coordination, not attained
- Atc personnel(dep/apch) › Radar separation, not maintained
- Atc personnel(dep/apch) › Visual separation, improper use of
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Atlanta, GA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The crew of DAL147 said that they were inbound to land at Atlanta and was at 12,000 feet, on a heading 227 degrees, in sequence for runway 08 when the flight was switched to the south runway. They were told to turn to 180 degrees when able, and to look for traffic at 11,000 feet. DAL147 was in the clouds executing the turn to 180 degrees when they responded to the TARH controller that they had the traffic on TCAS, climbing out of 11,000 feet, approaching their altitude. The crew further stated that the TCAS indicated that the traffic was climbing to 14,000 feet. The pilot flying turned off the autopilot to make the turn quicker to avoid the traffic, and when the autopilot came off, a flight attendant in the back of the airplane was seriously injured. FAA transcript of communications revealed that the TARH controller told DAL147 that the traffic would be leveling at eleven and instructed the crew to maintain visual separation from the traffic. The transcripts also show that at 1902:43 the traffic, a Continental Airlines flight (COA66), was climbing in the clouds, and had been cleared to 14,000 feet instead of 11,000 feet.
Probable cause
FAA approach/departure controller's improper service and failure to coordinate and resolve a conflict between aircraft prior to effecting a frequency change, and the improper application of visual separation rules to a flight in the clouds, resulting the crew being required to make an abrupt maneuver to avoid the traffic, causing serious injury to a flight attendant.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA99LA272
- Event ID
- 20001212X19842
- Case number
- MIA99LA272
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4f26809551d033618e10341354258104c4f0104f2b16025eea844bfb510d66da; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:52:34.684Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N196DN; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.