American Airlines Flight 1547
Boeing 767-200ER and Delta Airlines Boeing 737-832 · Accident: collision between aircraft (not in flight) while taxiing
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC01LA094
- 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
- Accident
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 767-200ER
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 767
- 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
- N328AA
- Operator
- American Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Boston Logan International Airport (BOS), Boston, MATo Orlando International Airport (MCO), Orlando, FL
- 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
- Taxi
- 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
- Collision between aircraft (not in flight)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Aircraft 2 · Boeing 737-832
- 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
- N3731T
- Operator
- Delta Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Boston Logan International Airport (BOS), Boston, MATo LaGuardia Airport (LGA), Flushing, NY
- 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
- Taxi · to runway
- 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
- On ground/water collision with object
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Distance, misjudged
- Pilot of other aircraft › Distance, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Delta Airlines flight 1823, a Boeing 737-800, was instructed by air traffic control (ATC) to hold short of runway 27, on taxiway D-1, while American Airlines flight 1547, a Boeing 767-200, was instructed to taxi to runway 27 via taxiway D. While taxiing, the right wing tip of the American 767 struck and substantially damaged the left elevator and horizontal stabilizer of the Delta 737. The flight crew of the Delta 737 reported that the airplane had been holding short of the runway 27 hold line, with the parking brakes set, when they felt a "violent shudder." They then looked back and observed the American 767 taxiing past them on taxiway D. The flight crew from the American 767 reported that the sun was creating a glare on the airplane's windscreen; however, they had observed the Delta 737 holding short, and the captain "felt there was more than adequate clearance to continue." According to an airport diagram, taxiway D was located on the north side of, and parallel to, runway 27. Taxiway D-1 extended at an angle to the northwest from runway 27, to taxiway D. The perpendicular distance between the taxiway D centerline and the runway 27 hold short line was 220 feet. Dimensional data provided by the manufacturer revealed that the overall wingspan of a Boeing 767-200, and the overall length of a Boeing 737-800, was approximately 156 feet, 1 inch and 124 feet, 9 inches, respectively.
Probable cause
The Boeing 767 captain's misjudgment of the distance between his airplane and the stationary Boeing 737, which resulted in a ground collision. A factor was sunglare.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC01LA094
- Event ID
- 20010416X00753
- Case number
- NYC01LA094
- 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, coordinates. 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: 9ae90817084c66ea33cb672a9e448088ed940c04fe81e8bfa2342d665505b5ad; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:15:09.720Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: operator. The NTSB narrative names the operator: "Delta Airlines flight 1823, a Boeing 737-800, was instructed by air traffic control (ATC) to hold short of runway 27"