Pan American World Airways Airbus Industrie A-300 incident
Airbus Industrie A-300 and American Airlines Boeing 727 · Incident: near collision between aircraft en route
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA88IA176
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Aircraft 1 · Airbus Industrie A-300
- Aircraft type
- Airbus A-300
- 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
- N209PA
- Operator
- Pan American World Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), New York City, NYTo Caracas Óscar Machado Zuloaga International Airport (SVCS), CRCS,VENEZUELA
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Near collision between aircraft
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Aircraft 2 · Boeing 727
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 727
- 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
- N727AA
- Operator
- American Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Luis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU), San Juan, PRTo Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), Philadelphia, PA
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Near collision between aircraft
- 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(artcc) › Artcc service, inadequate
- Atc personnel(artcc) › Atc clearance, improper
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
PAN AM FLT 217 (AIRBUS A300, N209PA) WAS CLRD BY NEW YORK CENTER OCEANIC CTL AREA (OCA) TO PROCEED SOUTH ON AIRWAY AMBER 300 AT FL 290 OVER THE ATLANTIC OCEAN. AS IT WAS EN ROUTE, AMERICAN FLT 902 DEPARTED SAN JUAN (SJU), PR FOR A NORTHBOUND FLT ON THE SAME AIRWAY UNDER IFR CTL BY SJU COMBINED CENTER & RADAR APCH CTL (CERAP). ON-THE-JOB TRAINING WAS BEING GIVEN TO THE CERAP CTLR. AS THE CTLR'S WORKLOAD WAS GETTING 'BUSY' WITH 'A HVY RUSH HOUR,' HIS SUPVR SCANNED THE BAY TO DETERMINE THE TRAFFIC (BUT DID NOT SEE THE FLT PROGRESS STRIP FOR FLT 217) & TOLD THE TRAINEE TO ASSIGN FLT 902 TO FL 290. THE TRAINEE COORDINATED THIS WITH OCA SINCE IT WAS THE WRONG DRCTN FOR THAT ALT. OCA APPROVED & FLT 902 WAS ASSIGNED FL 290. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE 2 ACFT CONVERGED & PASSED EACH OTHER WITH AN ESTD 300' LATERAL SEPN. THE NEAR COLLISION OCCURRED IN A NON-RADAR INVIRONMENT OVER THE OCEAN ABT 200 MI NORTH OF SAN JUAN. THE OCA CTLR SAID SHE WAS AWARE BOTH FLTS WOULD BE AT THE SAME ALT, BUT APPROVAL WAS BASED ON PREMISE THAT SJU WAS AWARE & WOULD PROVIDE OTR SEPN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA88IA176
- Event ID
- 20001213X25751
- Case number
- MIA88IA176
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- 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: a40c834b5838114eb4b083878c34664036d95653dfc03a07be70d875fd93ad41; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:21:59.140Z.