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PrivatAir Airbus Industrie 319 incident

21 Mar 2006 · Chicago, IL, United States

Airbus Industrie 319 and Chautauqua Airlines Embraer 145EP · Incident: near collision between aircraft during takeoff

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Event

NTSB case
OPS06IA006
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 · Airbus Industrie 319

Aircraft type
Airbus 319
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
D-APAC
Operator
PrivatAir
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Chicago O'Hare International Airport (KORD), Chicago, ILTo Düsseldorf Airport (EDDL), Dusseldorf
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
Takeoff · rejected takeoff
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 · Embraer 145EP

Aircraft type
Embraer 145
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
N977RP
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Chicago O'Hare International Airport (KORD), Chicago, ILTo Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport (KSDF), Louisville, KY
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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
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
Takeoff · rejected takeoff
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

  • Control tower › Improper

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

Certified professional controller (CPC) providing on-the-job training working North Local Control position for 24 minutes responsible for 8 aircraft. Plan X in effect (landing and departing runways 4 and 9). Developmental controller (DEV) is certified on all positions except local control (has 150 hours of the allotted 180.) Lufthansa (DLH) flight 437, A319, was instructed to taxi-into-position-and-hold on runway 4L to wait for the previous arrival to exit the runway. Chautauqua (CHQ) flight 7826, E145, was issued taxi-into-position-and-hold runway 9L and was advised traffic (DLH437) would be departing runway 4L. (It is approximately 1,900 feet from the Runway 9L threshold to the intersection of Runway 4L.) When the runway 9L traffic exited, DLH437 was cleared for takeoff. Thirty-five seconds later the DEV cleared CHQ7826 for takeoff on runway 9L. The Local Monitor and the CPC did not hear the DEV clear CHQ7826 for takeoff. Shortly thereafter, the Local Monitor noticed both aircraft were rolling and told the North Local Controller CPC who canceled takeoff instructions to both aircraft. Closest proximity 100 feet when both aircraft stopped at the runway intersection. AMASS did not have crossing runway logic installed and did not alarm. The pilot of DLH437 called the tower later and said they observed the E145 and was aborting takeoff when the controller told him to stop.

Probable cause

The probable cause of this incident is the local controller's failure to ensure proper separation between Lufthansa (DLH) flight 437 andChautauqua (CHQ) flight 7826. Contributing to the probable cause was the local controller's failure to monitor the situation and advise the local controller that DLH437 had not departed prior to the controller issuing the takeoff clearance to CHQ7826.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record OPS06IA006
Event ID
20060411X00416
Case number
OPS06IA006
Dataset
historical-pre2008
Source SHA-256
89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
  • 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, 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: a4b196865bd489be54774e3ae57e9154a2d5847ee05e9fbb5c86b235440e9f36; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:54:35.494Z.