Description

On 23 July 2006, a Boeing B737-300 operated by United Airlines executed an early rotation during a night take off when a Boeing 747 operated by Atlas Air was observed on a landing roll on an intersecting runway at Chicago O’Hare Airport. The occurrence is attributed to ATC error.

Synopsis

The National Transportation Safety Board (USA) (NTSB) Report on the Serious Incident provides the following description of the event:

"At the time of the incident, the north local control (NLC) position was closed and the responsibilities were combined with south local control (SLC), located at the LC5 position in the ORD tower cab. The SLC was responsible for aircraft landing and departing runway 14R and departing runway 27L and used frequencies 120.75 and 126.9. Because of this configuration the ORD Standard Operating Procedures Order, ORD 7110.65E , required that either the Electronic Flight Strip Transfer System (EFSTS) position or Local Monitor (LMN) position be staffed to assist the SLC. The third local controller (LC3) was responsible for aircraft departing runway 22L and used frequency 132.7. SLC had several flight crews who had requested to depart from runway 14R for operational purposes. Because aircraft departing from runway 14R entered LC3's airspace, SLC was required to coordinate with LC3 for the release of those flights. SLC verbally coordinated the release of two departure aircraft, United Airlines (UAL) flight 938 and Air India (AI) flight 124, that he intended to depart before GTI6972 (Atlas Air) landed.