Endeavor Air Flight 3860
Bombardier Inc CL600 2D24 900 · Incident: runway incursion (vehicle, aircraft or person) during takeoff
From Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) to Norfolk International Airport (ORF)
Event
- NTSB case
- OPS16IA002
- 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
Bombardier Inc CL600 2D24 900
- Aircraft type
- Bombardier CL600
- 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
- N316PQ
- Operator
- Endeavor Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW), Detroit, MITo Norfolk International Airport (ORF), Norfolk, VA
- Aircraft age
- About 2 years (built 2014)
- 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
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The Local Northwest (LNW) controller cleared Ops 373 (O373), an airport ops vehicle, to drive on runway 22L to conduct a routine inspection. About 90 seconds prior to the incident, and while O373 was operating on the runway, the LNW and Local Northeast (LNE) positions were combined and the LNE controller assumed all LNE and LNW duties. The LNW and LNE controllers conducted a required position relief briefing but did not conduct the briefing at the relieved position in accordance with standard operating procedures.
During the position relief briefing, the LNW controller informed the LNE controller that O373 was driving on runway 22L and at about the same time, Endeavor Air (FLG3860), a CRJ 900, transmitted on the frequency they were ready for departure on runway 22L.
About four seconds after completion of the position relief briefing, at 0802:44, the LNE controller instructed FLG3860 to line up and wait on runway 22L and at 0803:46 cleared FLG3860 for takeoff. About 20 seconds later the Airport Surface Detection System – Model X (ASDE-X) alerted indicating the runway was occupied by both FLG3860 and O373. The LNE controller instructed FLG3860 to "…abort takeoff" and instructed O373 to exit the runway. Both complied with the instruction. ASDE-X data indicated the closest proximity between FLG3860 and O373 was about 211 feet.
The relieved LNW controller did not conduct a required two-minute overlap upon completion of the position relief briefing in order to monitor and review the position to ensure that nothing had been overlooked or incorrectly displayed.
At the time of the incident, the tower was staffed with four personnel; one combined LNE/LNW controller, one combined ground northeast/ground northwest controller, one flight data/clearance delivery controller, and one controller in charge.
Probable cause
The local controller's failure to visually scan and ensure that the runway surface was not occupied by a vehicle or other aircraft before issuing a takeoff clearance to the pilot. Contributing to this incident was the relieved controller's failure to monitor and review the position, after completing the relief briefing, to ensure that nothing had been overlooked.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record OPS16IA002
- Event ID
- 20160127X70645
- Case number
- OPS16IA002
- 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: 5fb84789bd5ed572b5498a7ed42b9e0859bbb943751ddc1e7990f17ed0e94451; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:07:18.616Z.