WestJet Air Center Boeing 737-700 incident
Boeing 737-700 and Northwest Airlines Airbus Industrie A320 · Incident: near collision between aircraft while taxiing
Event
- NTSB case
- OPS07IA009
- 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 737-700
- 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
- C-FUWS
- Operator
- WestJet Air Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Calgary International Airport (YYC), CALGARY ALTATo Los Angeles International Airport (KLAX), Los Angeles, CA
- 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
- Taxi · from 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
Aircraft 2 · Airbus Industrie A320
- Aircraft type
- Airbus A320
- 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
- N348NW
- Operator
- Northwest Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Los Angeles International Airport (KLAX), Los Angeles, CATo Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM), Memphis, TN
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On August 16, 2007, at approximately 1257 Pacific daylight time, a runway incursion occurred involving West Jet (WJA) 900, B737 and Northwest Airlines (NWA) flight 180, an A320, at Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles, California.
WJA900 landed on runway 24R and exited at taxiway Y then changed to ground control frequency without authorization while the airplane was holding between the parallel runways. The tower controller cleared NWA180 for takeoff from runway 24L. Meanwhile, the pilot of WJA900 contracted ground control and said, "Ground, WJA900 with you on reverse [taxiway] yankee for gate 35." The ground controller believed that the tower controller had instructed the flight to cross runway 24L and responded, "WJA900, Los Angeles tower, taxi [via taxiway] echo to the gate."
Ten seconds later, the pilot of WJA900 confirmed that the flight was cleared to cross runway 24L. The ground controller asked who called and the pilot again asked whether or not they were cleared to cross the runway. The ground controller then realized that WJA900 had not been instructed to cross runway 24L and told WJA900 to stop. According to the FAA and WJA, the airplane crossed the hold short line but did not enter the runway. According to the FAA, the two aircraft missed colliding by 37 feet (wingtip of A320 to the nose of the B737) as NWA180 departed runway 24L.
The Airport Movement Area Safety System (AMASS) activated on this incident.
Probable cause
The LAX north ground controller's failure to properly coordinate with the tower local controller prior to providing taxi instructions that permitted an aircraft to cross an active runway while another aircraft was departing.
**This report was modified on December 12, 2007.**
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record OPS07IA009
- Event ID
- 20070821X01217
- Case number
- OPS07IA009
- 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, 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: 87e8634c2abfb6ec56cb700acd7508466bd17866a934c68814e9853ddbac5738; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:42:25.908Z.