Delta Air Lines Flight 654
Boeing 737-832 and Avianca Airlines Airbus A319 111 · Incident: near midair/TCAS alert/loss of separation en route
Event
- NTSB case
- OPS11IA101
- 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 · Boeing 737-832
- 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
- N3742C
- Operator
- Delta Air Lines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Queen Beatrix International Airport (TNCA), OranjestadTo Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Atlanta, GA
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 · Airbus A319 111
- Aircraft type
- Airbus A319
- 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
- HK-4553
- Operator
- Avianca Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD)To El Dorado International Airport (SKBO), Bogotá
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
A Boeing 737-800 and an Airbus 319 were transiting Miami Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) airspace on nearly opposite direction crossing courses when a loss of separation between the two airplanes occurred. The pilots of both airplanes received resolution advisories from the airplanes’ Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance Systems and took the advised actions to reestablish required separation.
The airplanes were operating in the same Miami ARTCC sector, but were under the control of two different air traffic controllers when the loss of separation occurred. The first controller, who was originally handling the Airbus 319, stated that, although the airplane had not yet left the incident sector, he had transferred responsibility for the airplane to the second controller. After doing so, the first controller dropped the data tag for the Airbus 319 from his radar display and became occupied with other duties. One of those additional duties involved handling the Boeing 737 that had just entered the incident sector, transferred by the controller who was now responsible for handling the Airbus 319. The first controller did not maintain awareness of the Airbus's position, and he did not notice the impending conflict with the Boeing 737 when he subsequently cleared that airplane to climb to the Airbus’ altitude.
The second controller, who transferred control of the Boeing 737 to the first controller, had dropped the data tag for that airplane from his radar display when it left his sector. He was not aware of the conflict between the two airplanes until the radar conflict alert activated. At that time, both controllers attempted to resolve the situation, but a loss of separation occurred. At the closest point, the airplanes were within about 1,800 feet vertically and 2.81 miles laterally of each other. Federal Aviation Administration standards require minimum separation of either 2,000 feet vertically or 5 miles laterally between aircraft operating on instrument flight rules.
Probable cause
Air traffic controllers did not maintain required awareness of available flight data and aircraft positions, resulting in issuance of an incorrect altitude clearance that caused a loss of standard instrument flight rules separation between the two aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record OPS11IA101
- Event ID
- 20101115X72424
- Case number
- OPS11IA101
- 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: 794de79fbc587eb352e34944c58d56dafc7a518da870c8f0df1023fca27b1ba0; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:17:39.228Z.