Air Canada Boeing 727-233 incident
Boeing 727-233 and Cessna 650 · Incident: near collision between aircraft en route
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI87IA188
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Aircraft 1 · Boeing 727-233
- 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
- CGYNE
- Operator
- Air Canada
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD), Chicago, ILTo Calgary International Airport (CYYC), CALGARY,CANADA
- 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 129: Foreign
- 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 · climb to 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 · Cessna 650
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 650
- 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
- N20AT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chicago Executive Airport (PWK), Wheeling, ILTo South Bend International Airport (SBN), South Bend, IN
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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 · climb to 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(dep/apch) › Atc clearance, improper
- Atc personnel(dep/apch) › Crew/group coordination, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Chicago, IL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
AIR CANADA FLT 839 (BOEING 727, C-GYNE) WAS DEPG CHICAGO O'HARE INTL ARPT AS CESSNA 650 (CITATION), N20AT, WAS DEPG PALWAUKEE (PWK) ARPT, ABOUT 8 MI NORTH OF O'HARE. BOTH FLTS TKOF WITH IFR FLT PLANS. BFR THE CITATION TKOF, THE PWK TWR CTLR CTCD THE TRACON NORTH SATELLITE CTLR (NC) & OBTAINED CLNC FOR THE CITATION TO TAKEOFF ON RWY 16 WITH A PWK #1 DEPARTURE. FLT 839 TOOK OFF FM RWY 32R AT O'HARE & BGN A RGT TURN TO 020 DEG, CLBG TO 5000'. AT ABOUT THE SAME TIME, THE CITATION DEPD RWY 16 AT PWK & BGN A RGT TURN WHILE CLBG TO 3000'. THE 2 ACFT CONVERGED NRLY HEAD-ON & PASSED CLOSE TO EACH OTR. FLT 839 ESTD THEY PASSED WITH APRX 500' SEPN, THE CITATION CREW ESTD 100' SEPN. BOTH FLTS WERE IN CTC WITH TRACON; FLT 839 WAS IN CTC WITH THE EAST DEP CTLR (EC); THE CITATION CREW WERE IN CTC WITH NC. THE 2 CTLRS WERE WORKING SIDE-BY-SIDE, SHARING THE SAME RADAR SCOPE. THERE WAS AN AVAILABLE LIGHT TO WARN OF ACFT DEPG PWK, BUT IT WAS NOT BEING USED. WRITTEN PROCEDURES FOR USE OF THE LIGHT WERE NOT SPECIFIC. TRAFFIC WAS DESCRIBED AS MODERATE TO BUSY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI87IA188
- Event ID
- 20001213X31746
- Case number
- CHI87IA188
- 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: 162951e1d54b1dc5ef91bfceb067f97962040a3f9b70ec0cd58b2bd0815d3921; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:38:58.944Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: operator. The NTSB narrative names the operator: "AIR CANADA FLT 839 (BOEING 727, C-GYNE) WAS DEPG CHICAGO O'HARE INTL ARPT"