SkyWest Airlines Flight 5945
Bombardier Inc CL-600-2B19 and Angel City Air American Eurocopter LLC AS350B2 · Incident: near midair/TCAS alert/loss of separation on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- OPS10IA163
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 CL-600-2B19
- 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
- N953SW
- Operator
- SkyWest Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Francisco International Airport (KSFO), San Francisco, CATo Hollywood Burbank/Bob Hope Airport (KBUR), Burbank, 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 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
- Approach · IFR final approach
- 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
- Near midair/TCAS alert/loss of separation
- 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 · American Eurocopter LLC AS350B2
- Aircraft type
- Eurocopter AS350
- Category
- Helicopter
- 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
- N29LW
- Operator
- Angel City Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Van Nuys Airport (KVNY), Van Nuys, CATo Van Nuys Airport (KVNY), Van Nuys, 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 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
- Maneuvering · hover
- 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
- Near midair/TCAS alert/loss of separation
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Burbank, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
A Canadair CRJ-200 and an American Eurocopter AStar 350, operating as a news helicopter, were involved in a near mid-air collision while the CRJ was on the left base leg of the landing pattern for a visual approach to land. As the CRJ was descending through 1,500 feet, the helicopter was conducting operations two miles southeast of the runway at 1,400 feet. The crew of the CRJ received and complied with a traffic alert and collision avoidance system resolution advisory directing a climb to maintain separation from the helicopter. The helicopter was operating under visual flight rules in the southeast portion of the airport’s Class C airspace. The event occurred at dusk under visual meteorological conditions. There was no damage to either aircraft, and no reported injuries.
This incident resulted from the local controller not maintaining positive control/standard separation of aircraft within the Class C airspace. As the controller did not issue any control instructions to establish and maintain separation, neither visual separation nor target resolution procedures were being applied before the incident occurred. Consequently, the flight crew of the CRJ received a resolution advisory and had to maneuver to resolve the conflict.
Probable cause
The local controller’s failure to issue control instructions necessary to ensure positive control/standard separation of traffic operating within the Class C airspace.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record OPS10IA163
- Event ID
- 20100512X62223
- Case number
- OPS10IA163
- 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 UTC date the NTSB stores; the local time zone is not recorded, so the local date may differ by a day.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 043cea9c52b1e7d9a42e7aa73d511804bfceb1e46562c727cc530e447c1ecf12; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:16:20.618Z.