Mesa Airlines Flight 7138
Bombardier Inc CL-600-2C1 and Cessna R172K · Incident: runway incursion (vehicle, aircraft or person) during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- OPS08IA015
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 CL-600-2C1
- Aircraft type
- Bombardier CL-600
- 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
- N506MJ
- Operator
- Mesa Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Allentown, PATo Chicago O'Hare International Airport (KORD), Chicago, IL
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- Runway incursion (vehicle, aircraft or person)
- 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 · Cessna R172K
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N736GV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Essex County Airport (CDW), Caldwell, NJTo Allentown, PA
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- Runway incursion (vehicle, aircraft or person)
- 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
- Organizational issues › Support/oversight/monitoring
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On September 19, 2008, at 1938 eastern daylight time, an operational error occurred that resulted in a near-collision on runway 6 at the Lehigh Valley International Airport (ABE), Allentown, Pennsylvania. Mesa Air Shuttle flight 7138, a Canadair CRJ-700 carrying 56 passengers and four crew from ABE to Chicago as a scheduled 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) part 121 flight, aborted takeoff because N736GV, a Cessna 172 carrying a pilot and two passengers under 14 CFR part 91, had just landed and was still taxiing on the runway near the intersection with taxiway B. The crew of ASH7138 estimated the distance between the two aircraft as 10 feet when they passed. There was no damage to either aircraft and no reported injuries. Following the incident, both aircraft taxied to parking. The crew of ASH7138 elected to cancel the flight and have the aircraft inspected. N736GV taxied to general aviation parking and concluded the flight.
Probable cause
The failure of both tower controllers to maintain awareness of the position of N736GV and ensure that the aircraft was clear of the runway before issuing a takeoff clearance to ASH7138.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record OPS08IA015
- Event ID
- 20080922X01509
- Case number
- OPS08IA015
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 237e55ba33a4bf6af0c9f285354ff6020fdd074841386a16e7a9861ced461c27; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:14:13.058Z.