Confused callsigns sends 737 towards 777 above Dallas [ATC audio]

PATREON: / airtrafficvisualised
Monday, March 1 2021: When both Dallas Regional Departure ATC and an American Airlines flight crew confuse their callsign, a departing American Boeing 737 turns directly towards an arriving company Boeing 777.
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Air traffic control audio courtesy of LiveATC: www.liveatc.net/
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Additional thanks to these members of freesound.org for providing their sounds under a CC-BY license:
freesound.org/people/Corsica_...
freesound.org/people/digifish...
freesound.org/people/Kinoton/...
#KDFW #AmericanAirlines #DallasFortWorth #ATC

[@Zenoman1234]

Very interesting! I just found out your channel yesterday and I’m loving your content!!

[@AirTrafficVisualised]

Glad you enjoy it, thanks for watching!

[@bryanjk]

​@@AirTrafficVisualiseddo you have multiple channels? Just curious, I enjoy these.

[@jamescollier3]

EXCELLENT!!! Graphics and visuals!!

[@AirTrafficVisualised]

Many thanks for your comment and glad you enjoyed!

[@richardcurrie2468]

The controller was working 4 different frequencies uhf/vhf. Readbacks become difficult if two aircraft take a frequency change at the same time on different frequencies if that makes sense. As for the descending aircraft and the conflicting departure. Those are being worked by two different sectors. So, it is likely there was a lot of land line coordination in between the two to get on the same page and avoid a conflict.

[@forceinfinity]

Been too long since you posted. Good to see you back. Don’t be a stranger to your own channel!

[@AirTrafficVisualised]

Thanks for sticking it out and staying subscribed! I've spent the past few months drastically retooling my workflow with the goal of ramping up production on the channel, so stay tuned for more soon!

[@nightwaves3203]

2308 took and read back 2391's instructions without the controller catching it. Doubling sometimes blanks out both transmissions. If 2308 was audible the controller should of caught it an corrected 2308 even though it wasn't the controllers fault. I'm sure 2308 figured it out after canter told him has wasn't handed off.

[@micahsullivan1095]

How come AA2308 didn’t say anything?

[@Rems19]

There was not even a 2391 was there? I assume the instructions were for 2891.

[@Shadow7717]

Thanks. Only after I saw ur comment I understood what was going on in this video.

[@nightwaves3203]

@@Shadow7717 My personal take is the cavemen running allot of the worlds aviation don't have the sense to use upper and lower sideband USB LSB radios so the tower can always hear any transmissions all at the same time without blanking out others. You can hear tens of peaple all at the same time when they transmit. Millions of dollars of aircraft and simple radio changes solves a problem. Using sideband radios even other pilots could call out hey two guys transmitted at the same time. The FCC is loaded with people without radio licenses and the FAA without good pilots. What could ever go wrong hehehe.

[@arnoldsherrill6305]

They looked like two vehicles heading for the same merge point on a ramp ., this looked like it could have been nasty period, if that turn hadn't been completed

[@AirTrafficVisualised]

Taking the difference in altitude into account, at closest point of approach the aircraft were just over 1km away from each other. Lucky ATC was well on top of the mistake to correct it.

[@arnoldsherrill6305]

@@AirTrafficVisualised I understand what you said and I agree ., but that was still cutting awful close

[@CraigLumpyLemke]

@@AirTrafficVisualised Lucky he caught his own two mistakes that sent the two planes toward the same waypoint.

[@noswear6002]

I don't understand why Americans don't use the icao regulations and other than full hundreds say every digit as a single word... I saw so many videos of mix ups that could have been avoided by that

[@BPEKSupraInteractive]

What map or software are you using to visualize these for the videos?

[@AirTrafficVisualised]

The map is provided by Mapbox with custom styling. The software the visualisation runs in is custom designed for the channel.

[@vickomf1]

This might be a trade secret but.... how do you find out about these?

[@AirTrafficVisualised]

There are quite a few databases covering these sorts of occurrences. Head over to the Wikipedia page for "List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft" and head to the bottom of the page to check their external references.

[@sushka]

I remember back in the day flying for Comair, I once replied to a call for another Comair behind us, totally not our fly number. I think I confused everybody that day. 😜

[@mju135]

Question for the experts: would it have been warranted for ATC to ask AAL280 to evade or climb?

[@dezzdeh]

Not exactly sure if I'm an expert. But traffic with overlapping flight paths are seperated by a minimum of +/-1000 ft below 29,000 ft. You can see that AAL2309 is at ~8000 ft, about 2000 ft below AAL280. Even if they were close enough, TCAS would've alerted them to take evasive action. Hope that answers that :)

[@MillionFoul]

ATC could have taken that action, but the aircraft only just barely didn't break minimum separation. In any case, the climbing aircraft's TCAS would have generated an RA to stop their climb to which they are required to and should immediately comply. The level aircrafts TCAS also would have went off, I'm not sure if it would have told them to climb or not.

[@AirTrafficVisualised]

At the closest point of approach AAL2308 was at ~9600 ft and AAL280 was at ~10700 feet, so just over 1000 feet of separation. By that time, though, they'd already begun to make the right turn to avoid the 777. Just to note that the frequency in the video was DFW Regional Departure, so this controller wasn't talking to AAL280. While it would certainly have been possible to get them to turn, as @DezzaDee and @MillionFoul said, TCAS would have cleaned this up very quickly for AAL2308. Thanks for watching and commenting!

[@mju135]

@@AirTrafficVisualised I've seen too many instances of TCAS not working on avherald...

[@CraigLumpyLemke]

ATC missed the wrong plane's callsign twice during the readback. If he started missing that again when he was giving evade instructions, it could have become quite a compound disaster.

[@paddyohenry6428]

Controller needs remedial training. He just spewed out instructions without listening to the readback. He should cut out saying every frequency twice in order to free up a bit of bandwidth, too.

[@Boodieman72]

I wonder of TCAS had a warning.

[@AirTrafficVisualised]

Can't say for sure, however here are my thoughts. A couple of reasons I don't think a TCAS RA alert was issued: • Both aircraft were flying in the same direction at a similar speed, reducing the protection volume of AAL280. • The AAL2308 flight crew didn't report receiving a TCAS RA alert. • The AAL2308 flight crew followed the controller's instruction (TCAS RA always takes precedence). However the crew of AAL2308 would likely have seen AAL280 on their ND once they got close enough and may have received a TCAS Traffic alert. Thanks for commenting!

[@Anolaana]

1:52 When a couple asks "you up?" they wanna hook up. When ATC asks "you up?" they want you to respond on the radio. They are not the same.

[@Zegmaar_Bas]

The couple wants contact, the controller is avoiding contact.

[@jakejacobs7584]

Now try that same level of activity overseas in places like Brazil, France or even Holland where the accents are thick and the other pilots are speaking the local language to the controllers. The stress level goes WAY up....

[@gilmanromima2205]

when you're controlling. you must give right instructions instead of complaining any thing

[@Newberntrains]

No doubt that 737 flagged yellow on the ND of the 777 Suprised the pilot didn’t get a brasher warning for deviating off the SID

[@AirTrafficVisualised]

The AAL2308 flight crew believed they were following ATC instructions (due to both ATC and the crew misspeaking/mishearing callsigns) which would be a valid reason to deviate from a SID. The waypoint JASPA, while not on the primary SID route, is displayed as an alternate "gate" waypoint on the departure chart so it's not unreasonable that the crew thought they were getting a "direct to" instruction. Cheers for watching and commenting!