Comair Flight 5412
Bombardier, Inc. CRJ1 and America West Airlines Airbus Industrie A320 · Incident: near collision between aircraft during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- OPS08IA002
- 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 · Bombardier, Inc. CRJ1
- Aircraft type
- Bombardier CRJ1
- 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
- N781CA
- Operator
- Comair
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI), Baltimore, MDTo Boston Logan International Airport (BOS), MA
- 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
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
- N659AW
- Operator
- America West Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX), Phoenix, AZTo Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI), Baltimore, MD
- 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
Cause areas
- Atc personnel(lcl/gnd/clnc) › Atc clearance, improper
- 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
On December 2, 2007, at approximately 7:21 pm Eastern Standard time, Comair flight 5412 (COM5412), a Bombardier Regional Jet (CRJ), departed runway 15R and over flew America West (AWE) flight 83, an Airbus A320, that had landed on runway 10 at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI), Baltimore, Maryland during night visual meteorological conditions.
Weather conditions were: wind calm, visibility 5 statute miles, light rain and mist, ceiling 1,000 feet broken and 3,000 feet overcast.
The tower controller had cleared AWE83 to land on runway 10 and AWE83 was approximately 6 mile on final approach when the ATC local controller cleared COM5412 for takeoff on runway 15R. COM5412 was on taxiway A about 500 feet short of runway 15R when the takeoff clearance was issued. AMASS alerted. COM5412 rotated at taxiway F and over flew AWE83, at the intersection of runways 10 and 15R. The initial report from the Federal Aviation Administration stated that COM5421 over flew AWE83 by 300 feet. AWE83 exited runway 10 at runway 22.
Probable cause
The probable cause of this incident is local controller's failure of maintaining awareness of the situation and failing to provide the appropriate separation between the two aircraft operating on intersecting runways. Providing separation between aircraft is a first duty priority, in accordance with FAA Order 7110.65.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record OPS08IA002
- Event ID
- 20080124X00102
- Case number
- OPS08IA002
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2007-12-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f69391f8452922931b2e04d245cd8f53c6f57eb80c3e9e5383f04679084f31bc; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:40:03.466Z.