Piedmont Aviation Boeing 737-200 incident
Boeing 737-200 and Georgia Air National Guard McDonnell Douglas F-4 · Incident: near collision between aircraft en route
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL86IA100
- 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 · Boeing 737-200
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- 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
- N774N
- Operator
- Piedmont Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From William P. Hobby Airport (HOU), Houston, TXTo not recorded
- 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 · descent
- 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 · McDonnell Douglas F-4
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas F-4
- 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
- AFNG
- Operator
- Georgia Air National Guard
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dobbins Air Reserve Base (MGE), Marietta, GATo Dobbins Air Reserve Base (MGE), Marietta, 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 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
- 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, inadequate
- Pilot of other aircraft › Remedial action, inadequate
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
A NR MIDAIR COLLISION OCCURRED APRX 38 MI SE OF THE NASHVILLE METRO ARPT AS A BOEING 737, PIEDMONT FLT 488, WAS DSCNDG THRU APRX 12,000' & A FLT OF 4 F-4'S, CALL SIGN PEACH 41, WERE JOINING. FLT 488 WAS INBND TO NASHVILLE ON AN IFR CLNC & MEMPHIS ARTCC HAD CLRD IT TO DSCND TO 6000'. PEACH 41 HAD JUST COMPLETED A LOW-LVL HI-SPD FLT ON MIL TRNG ROUTE VR-1051.THE 1ST ELEMENT (#1 & #2) BGN A LEFT CLIMBING TURN FOR THE TRAILING ELEMENT (#3 & #4) TO JOIN & CALLED ARTCC FOR AN IFR CLNC. ARTCC TOLD PEACH 41 TO MAINT VFR & ADVISED BOTH FLTS OF EACH OTHER'S PSN. FLT 488 HAD SEEN THE F-4'S & WAS CLRD TODEVIATE TO THE LEFT. PEACH 41 LEADER OBTAINED RADAR CONTACT WITH FLT 488 & CLIMBED ABV 13,000'. THE 2ND ELEMENT OF F-4'SSAW FLT 488 & REMAINED LOW TO PASS UNDER THE AIRLINER. THE CREW OF FLT 488 DID NOT TAKE EVASIVE ACTION; THEY RPRTD 'NO ROOM EXISTED FOR US TO MANEUVER OUT OF THEIR FLIGHT PATH.'
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL86IA100
- Event ID
- 20001213X32977
- Case number
- ATL86IA100
- 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: 26c0038e7cb836be04ca226ff953dd6aa9824c9d8e23b608517542efbbd7010c; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:03:23.417Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N774N; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.