Boeing 757-232 N693DL

Summary

On 11 March 2011 at about 17:21 local time, a Boeing 757-232 registered N693DL, operated by Delta Airlines, was involved in an incident near Atlanta, Georgia, United States. 130 people were on board and nobody was injured. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

11 March 2011 at 17:21

Classification

Incident

Location

Atlanta, Georgia, United States

Nearest airport

Atlanta (KATL)

Coordinates

Not recorded

Aircraft

Boeing 757-232

Registration

N693DL

Category

Airplane

Engines

2

Operator

Delta Airlines

Operating rule

Part 121: Air Carrier

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Atlanta → New York

Aircraft damage

Not recorded

Weather

VMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

OPS11IA410

Nobody was injured.

The air traffic controllers’ failure to adhere to required radar identification procedures, which resulted in loss of separation between the departing Boeing 757 and three other airplanes. Contributing to the incident was the pilots’ inadequate preflight checks, which resulted in the airplane departing with an inoperative transponder.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

A Boeing 757-200 departed from Atlanta, Georgia, without its transponder activated, and the pilots did not contact air traffic controllers for about 8 minutes after departure. The airplane flew through one controller’s airspace and entered another controller’s airspace without coordination before radar and radio contact was established. While the incident airplane’s transponder was not activated, the airplane’s radar data tag (which contained identification, altitude, and airspeed information) did not automatically appear on the controllers’ radar displays as it normally would have. Consequently, the airplane was displayed only as an enhanced primary target with no identifying information. Although local procedures require that Atlanta tower controllers verify that departures have a radar data tag before transferring communications to departure controllers, the tower controllers did not do so. Review of primary radar data determined that a loss of lateral separation occurred between the incident airplane and the following three airplanes: 1) a Beechcraft 55 (closest proximity 1.44 miles); 2) a Pilatus PC-12 (closest proximity 0.81 miles), and 3) a Canadair Regional Jet CRJ-100 (closest proximity 2.36 miles).

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.