Delta Airlines Inc DFW Base Maintenance Boeing 737 incident
Boeing 737 and Comair Canadair CRJ · Incident: near collision between aircraft during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- OPS07IA007
- 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
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Aircraft 1 · Boeing 737
- 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
- N737DA
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cincinnati Northern Kentucky International Airport (KCVG), Covington, KYTo LaGuardia Airport (KLGA), New York City, 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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 · Canadair CRJ
- Aircraft type
- Canadair CRJ
- 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
- N7415
- Operator
- Comair
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From New York City, NYTo Piedmont Triad International Airport (GSO), Greensboro, NC
- 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
- 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
- Atc clearance procedure › Inadequate
- Object › Aircraft moving on ground
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On July 5, 2007, at about 0915 Eastern daylight time, there was a runway incursion at LaGuardia Airport, New York, New York involving Delta (DAL) flight 1238, a 737, and Comair (COM) flight 196, a CRJ1. There was a developmental training on ground control (GC) at the time of this incident. GC requested to cross runway 22 with an aircraft at taxiway F. The local controller approved the request advising he should cross behind COM flight 425, an E135, which was landing on runway 22. DAL1238 was inbound, landing behind COM425. The aircraft following DAL1238 inbound was issued go around instructions but GC thought that DAL1238 had been sent around. GC then crossed COM196, on runway 22 at taxiway F, without coordination, as DAL1238 crossed the landing threshold.
The FAA originally reported that the lateral separation of the aircraft was 3,200 feet. The Airport Movement Area Safety System (AMASS) radar data indicated that the closest proximity of the aircraft was about 650 feet. The incident occurred during day visual flight rules conditions. The FAA classified this incursion as a Category C.
Probable cause
ATC - The incident occurred because the ground controller instructed COM5196 to cross runway 22, without approval from the local controller, resulting in a loss of separation with DAL1238 that was landing on the same runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record OPS07IA007
- Event ID
- 20070723X00975
- Case number
- OPS07IA007
- 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: 126bc50d375062312d3bd90e4aaca73bfe48daca8913a970350c6c0aa32f4fd4; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:43:18.311Z.