American Airlines Flight 1162
Airbus A321 231 and SkyWest Airlines Bombardier Inc CL 600 2B19 100 · Accident: ground collision while taxiing
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA17CA147
- 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
- Accident
- 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 · Airbus A321 231
- Aircraft type
- Airbus A321
- 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
- N991AU
- Operator
- American Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chicago O'Hare International Airport (KORD), Chicago O'Hare Int'l Airport, ILTo Los Angeles International Airport (KLAX), Los Angeles Int'l Airport, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2016)
- 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
- Taxi
- 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
- Ground collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Aircraft 2 · Bombardier Inc CL 600 2B19 100
- 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
- N862AS
- Operator
- SkyWest Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Frederick Douglass Greater Rochester International Airport (KROC), Rochester, NYTo Chicago O'Hare International Airport (KORD), Chicago, IL
- Aircraft age
- About 16 years (built 2001)
- 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
- Taxi
- 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
- Ground collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On June 30, 2017 at 2130 central daylight time, the wingtip ("sharklet") of an Airbus A321, N991AU, operated by American Airlines flight 1162, contacted the horizontal stabilizer of a Bombardier CRJ200, N862AS, operated by SkyWest Airlines d.b.a. Eagle Flight 3047, during taxi at the Chicago O'Hare International Airport. The A321 received minor damage and the CRJ200 was substantially damaged. There were no injuries aboard either aircraft. The CRJ200 had landed and taxied to the terminal and had been instructed by air traffic control to follow another aircraft on taxiway A7. Another aircraft ahead stopped unexpectedly and the line of traffic ending with the CRJ200, had to stop. The A321 was taxiing along taxiway A, perpendicular to A7, and maneuvered to go around the protruding tail of the CRJ200. However, the left sharklet wingtip of the A321 contacted the horizontal stabilizer of the CRJ200.
Probable cause
the A321 flight crew's incorrect evaluation of the clearance between the aircraft, leading to the inadvertent collision with the horizontal stabilizer of the CRJ200. Contributing to the accident was traffic congestion that resulted in the CRJ200 having to stop prior to fully clearing the perpendicular taxiway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA17CA147
- Event ID
- 20170703X71412
- Case number
- DCA17CA147
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2017-07-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8c077015515ac900ce01574be0833cfad31e0e45afbfe8f5b331b338090e2d98; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:26:43.296Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. Departure label misspells Airport; narrative gives Chicago O'Hare International Airport.