Braniff Airline Boeing 727-227 incident
Boeing 727-227 and United Airlines Boeing 727-22 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure en route
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL87IA020
- 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 727-227
- 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
- N471BN
- Operator
- Braniff Airline
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From LaGuardia Airport (LGA), NEW YORK, NYTo Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), Dallas, TX
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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 727-22
- 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
- N7014U
- Operator
- United Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Page Field (FMY), Fort Myers, FLTo Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD), Chicago, IL
- 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
- Comm/nav equipment, transmitter › Undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Livingston, TN, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE BRANIFF AND UNITED BOEING 727 JETLINERS WERE APPROACHING 'SWAPP' INTERSECTION ON CONVERGING JETWAYS AT THEIR PROPER ASSIGNED ALT OF 35,000'. THE CONTROLLER WAS IN THE PROCESS OF ISSUING RADAR VECTORS TO ASSURE PROPER LATERAL SEPARATION WHEN THE CONTROL FREQ BECAME BLOCKED. ATTEMPTS TO OVERRIDE THE BLOCKED FREQ WERE UNSUCCESSFUL AND THE TWO ACFT PASSED WITH APPROX 200' VERT AND ZERO HORZ SEPARATION. THE TWO FLT CREWS DID NOT SEE THE OTHER ACFT UNTIL THE NEAR COLLISION OCCURRED. THE INITIAL TRANSMISSION BY THE BRANIFF CAPTAIN FOLLOWING THE INCIDENT CLEARED THE FREQ AND ALL COMMS RETURNED TO NORMAL. BOTH ACFT LANDED WITHOUT FURTHER INCIDENT. THE FLT DATA RECORDER IN THE BRANIFF 727 INDICATED A SOLID 5 MINUTE EVENT MARKER OF MIC 'ON' THAT CORRELATED TO THE TIME OF THE INCIDENT. THE BRANIFF CREW WAS NOT AWARE OF THE FREQUENCY PROBLEM. THERE WERE NO DISCREPANCIES REVEALED DURING BENCH TESTS PERFORMED ON THE EQUIPMENT INSTALLED IN THE BRANIFF ACFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL87IA020
- Event ID
- 20001213X35091
- Case number
- ATL87IA020
- 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: 074796f6e98d27ef072ddecfbd7bfb2a77c69ff9dabea5885b7634c983c9d931; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:48:48.306Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N7014U; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, UALA.