Lufthansa Boeing 747-200 incident
Boeing 747-200 and Unknown · Incident: near collision between aircraft on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO85IA056
- 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 747-200
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 747
- 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
- DABYP
- Operator
- Lufthansa
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Frankfurt Main Airport (EDDF), FRNKFRT,GERMANYTo Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY), New Orleans, LA
- 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
- Approach · IFR initial approach
- 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 · Unknown
- 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
- UNK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From UNKNOWNTo UNKNOWN
- 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 · 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
- Pilot in command › Judgment, poor
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, inadequate
- Pilot of other aircraft › Judgment, poor
- Pilot of other aircraft › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of New Orleans, LA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DURING ARRIVAL, A BOEING 747, REGISTRATION NUMBER D-ABYP, LUFTHANSA FLIGHT 5432, WAS VECTORED FOR AN ILS LOCALIZER BACKCOURSE APCH TO RWY 19 AT THE NEW ORLEAN INTL ARPT. WHILE ON THE APCH AT 2000 FT MSL, THE AIRCREW WERE INSTRUCTED BY THE ARRIVAL CONTROLLER TO CONTACT THE TOWER ON ANOTHER FREQUENCY. SHORTLY AFTER THAT, THE ARRIVAL CONTROLLER OBSERVEDA VFR CODED TARGET APPEAR ON THE RADAR. HE ATTEMPTED TO ADVISE THE BOEING CREW BY USING AN OVERRIDE FEATURE, BUT AT THAT TIME, ANOTHER CONTROLLER WAS TRANSMITTING. THE BOEING CREW SAW THE ACFT COMING HEAD-ON & TOOK EVASIVE ACTION BY MAKING A STEEP TURN TO THE RIGHT. THE OTHER ACFT WAS A LIGHT SINGLE ENG PLANE THAT WAS FLYING AT 2000 FT MSL. THE LIGHT PLANE WAS NEVER IDENTIFIED & WAS NOT OBSERVED TO TAKE EVASIVE ACTION. A GROUP II TERMINAL CONTROL AREA (TCA) WAS IN PLACE AT NEW ORLEANS. THE NEAR COLLISION OCCURRED WHERE THE MIN ALT FOR THAT PART OF THE INSTR APCH WAS AT THE BOTTOMOF THE TCA. VFR FLT UP TO THE BOTTOM OF THE TCA IN THAT AREA WAS LEGAL. THE NUMBER OF OCCUPANTS IN THE SE ACFT WAS UNKN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO85IA056
- Event ID
- 20001214X41728
- Case number
- BFO85IA056
- 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: 750bb49fae063467c29364b16c4a846549f94988c00ed509c02a9baddf2d57ff; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:33:23.983Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: operator. The NTSB narrative names the operator: "A BOEING 747, REGISTRATION NUMBER D-ABYP, LUFTHANSA FLIGHT 5432, WAS VECTORED"