Envoy Air Flight ENY3660
Embraer EMB145 LR · Incident: air traffic event during takeoff
From Springfield Branson National Airport (SGF) to Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)
Event
- NTSB case
- OPS18IA014
- 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
Embraer EMB145 LR
- Aircraft type
- Embraer EMB145
- 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
- N655AE
- Operator
- Envoy Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Springfield Branson National Airport (SGF), Springfield, MOTo Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD), Chicago O'Hare, IL
- Aircraft age
- About 17 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
- 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
- Air traffic event
- 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 · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The runway incursion sequence began when the air traffic control (ATC) local controller (LC) cleared (ENY3660) for takeoff from an inactive runway that had been NOTAM’d closed for arrivals to accommodate airfield mowing in the underrun.
Interviews with controllers after the incident revealed SGF runway 14 had been NOTAM’d closed by SGF Airport Operations for arrivals but was available for departures. There were mowers in the underrun of runway 14 in the runway safety area (RSA) that prohibited an overflight by landing air traffic. The NOTAM was published and available to aircrew and air traffic control via the FAA website and covered the period from 1230 UTC to 2100 UTC.
Because runway 14/32 was closed to landing traffic, SGF standard operating procedures permitted the transfer of control for the runway to the ground controller (GC) position to use for runway crossings without the need for coordination with LC. Because GC now had operational control of the runway, the LC was required to request the use of the closed runway from the GC prior to issuing any clearances for takeoff.
The pilot of ENY3660 requested to use runway 14 for a departure, and the GC approved the request and issued taxi instructions to runway 14. While the airplane was taxiing to runway 14, VAN7 requested to cross runway 14 while GC maintained operational control of the runway. Because GC had control of the runway, there was no requirement to coordinate the closed runway vehicle crossing with LC.
When the pilot of ENY3660 called the LC ready for takeoff from runway 14, the LC issued a takeoff clearance without coordinating with GC.
Probable cause
The local controller failing to follow established facility directives and issuing a clearance for takeoff from a runway not under his control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record OPS18IA014
- Event ID
- 20180702X05713
- Case number
- OPS18IA014
- 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: b10d257bbdf2c05474631d3c7afb22dba051df713fb507440bebfa5ee8eb993b; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:43:50.517Z.