American Airlines Boeing 737-800s with identical callsigns nearly conflicted near Phoenix
Controller acted to separate converging outbound and inbound services on Chicago O’Hare route. Air-ground radio communications have revealed that a controller at Phoenix had to resolve an extraordinary conflict between outbound and inbound American Airlines Boeing 737-800s that were using identical callsigns. The aircraft were both operating the AA2482 service, whose flight number applies to the Phoenix-Chicago and Chicago-Phoenix sectors. Communications from Phoenix departure control, archived by LiveATC, indicate that the conflict occurred just after midnight on 14 August, about 5min after the Chicago-bound aircraft took off from runway 7L. It turned north and its crew informed the controller that they were climbing through 6,000ft to their assigned altitude of 9,000ft. The controller appeared to realise that the aircraft would cross the flightpath of the inbound service, arriving from Chicago, which was descending from the northeast at about 12,000ft. Distinguishing the inbound flight to its crew by referring to its being "on the arrival", the controller instructed it to maintain 10,000ft, which the crew confirmed. The controller then asked: "And there's an American 2482 on a 0730 code, is that correct, on the departure?" When the outbound crew confirmed they were climbing to 9,000ft, the controller acknowledged. "On the departure I need you to maintain 9,000, traffic one o'clock and 10 miles," he instructed, then added: "[It's] your company, same callsign, out of 11,800 descending to 10,000." "Incredible – we're looking, thank you," the outbound crew replied. Publicly-available ADS-B data suggests the outbound aircraft passed behind, and below, the inbound, although their precise horizontal and vertical separation has not been verified. The inbound Chicago-Phoenix flight appears to have been running some 90min behind schedule which would have contributed to the coincidental positioning. Identical callsigns for inbound and outbound services between the same city pairs are not unusual. American's flight AA1888 operates both ways on the Dallas-Raleigh route, as does Delta Air Lines' DL2006 between Milwaukee and Minneapolis.