McDonnell Douglas MD-82 N935AS

Summary

On 11 July 2000 at about 19:38 local time, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82 registered N935AS was involved in an incident near Anchorage, Alaska, United States. 107 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 July 2000 at 19:38

Classification

Incident

Location

Anchorage, Alaska, United States

Nearest airport

Anchorage Intl (ANC)

Coordinates

61.1794, -149.9833

Aircraft

McDonnell Douglas MD-82

Registration

N935AS

Category

Airplane

Engines

2

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 121: Air Carrier

Purpose of flight

Unknown

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Seattle → Anchorage

Aircraft damage

Not recorded

Weather

VMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

ANC00IA088

Nobody was injured.

An inoperative traffic alert and collision avoidance system (TCAS).

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

Read the full NTSB narrative

The crew of a McDonnell Douglas MD-82 airplane reported a near midair collision, about 15 miles north of the airplane's destination airport, while operating in Class E airspace. The captain of the MD-82 said that during the initial part of the approach, while descending through 4,000 feet msl, instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) prevailed. He added that approach control then cleared him to descend to 3,000 feet msl, on a heading of 160 degrees, and reported that there was traffic about 1 mile to the southwest, with an indicated altitude of 2,500 feet msl. As he started to level the airplane at 3,000 feet msl, and as the airplane descended below the clouds, he immediately saw a twin-engine airplane climbing from 2,500 feet toward his airplane. He said that he had very little time to react before the twin-engine airplane passed to the left and below of his airplane, about 500 feet horizontally, and 200 feet vertically. The captain added that his airplane's traffic alert and collision avoidance system (TCAS) was inoperative at the time of the incident. Subsequently, no collision avoidance alert was provided to the crew of the MD-82. A review of approach control records revealed that the twin engine Piper Seneca was not in contact with approach control, nor was it required to be, while operating within Class E airspace. A review of air-ground radio communications tapes revealed that the controller advised the MD-82 pilot that there was conflicting traffic, about one mile southwest of his location, headed in a northwesterly direction, and that the altitude was indicating 2,500 feet. About 20 seconds later the pilot of the MD-82 reported to the controller, in part: "...ha, that was pretty close on that traffic."

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.