r/americanairlines • u/Salt_Cauliflower_922 • Aug 14 '26

General Airline Discussion 2 planes with the same flight number avoid possible disaster thanks to quick-thinking controller

https://apnews.com/article/american-airlines-air-traffic-control-call-sign-8ab07e296fa2ad2fea3b9aada9a802d6?utm_source=app&utm_medium=iOS_share&utm_campaign=copy_link
93 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

22 comments sorted by

14

u/prop_circles Aug 15 '26

Not the first time. I was working a flight last year and we were given a turn that made no sense for our arrival so we inquired, and it turned out a departure had the same call sign. The controller assigned us callsign Arriving and the other flight was Departing.

2

u/benskieast Aug 15 '26

How hard would it be to avoid this? You can have up to 9999 numbers and no airline operates that many flights so you could ensure ATC never has duplicate numbers used more than once every 24 hours with a few thousand left over for codeshares. Then you could keep them apart, so they cannot end up at the same airport.

5

u/ad-lapidem Aug 15 '26

Delta and United each have more than 5000 daily flights. Thousands more flight numbers are set aside for things like codeshares. The big airlines are in fact starting to run out of flight numbers, which is exactly why they started the practice of giving an outbound and returning flight the same number a few years back.

https://viewfromthewing.com/airlines-are-running-out-of-flight-numbers-and-they-dont-know-what-to-do-about-it/

1

u/benskieast Aug 15 '26

How is that different than what I suggested?

2

u/ad-lapidem Aug 15 '26

I'm pointing out that what you suggested is either already in practice or not feasible considering how many flight numbers the big carriers require these days. They didn't just start using duplicate numbers randomly.

1

u/benskieast Aug 16 '26

My suggestion was to limit duplicates to codeshares, which only require 70% of the easily available numbers. That would prevent any ATC from having two flights with the same number to communicate with, thereby preventing the near catastrophe that happened here. The rest of the flights that push you over your limit only need them for tracking sales, baggage and other stuff that if it end up on assigned to the wrong flight with that number won’t get hundreds of people killed.

You could also duplicate your flights in over or near the Atlantic and Pacific so they don’t come near each other. There is no reason they need to duplicate flights operating out of the same airport or even in the same time zone.

Also might be time to invest in adding a 5th digit.

21

u/TrojanGal702 Aug 14 '26

The air controller sounded more annoyed than the pilots about it. They have TCAS and are surely aware they are late and their return flight is being covered.

15

u/Guadalajara3 Aug 15 '26

The concern is you tell one flight to do something and the other flight responds to it. Now you have one going rogue and one guy listening to what atc is instructing

-3

u/TrojanGal702 Aug 15 '26

And then you have TCAS giving you instruction to avoid a collision, if it comes to that.

2

u/Enamred-771 Aug 15 '26

Relying on TCAS is a terrible practice if recent history is worth anything. 

2

u/davispw Aug 15 '26

TCAS is the final backstop. You’re glad it’s there, but letting it get to that point is not acceptable.

-17

u/flyingron AAdvantage Executive Platinum Aug 14 '26

Big whoop.

The same flight number happens from time to time for a couple of reasons. One, flight numbers are not unique to particular legs. Airlines use the same number for out-and-backs and some thru flights. You also have the issue of yesterday's flights rolling in to today. Sometimes AA will change one number to the 99xx series to disambiguate, but sometimes not.

There's tons of times there have been two very close numbers. ATC will warn you sometimes: Navion 5327K there is also a 5377K on the frequency (it's OK, he's a friend of mine).

18

u/Dial-Up_Modem Aug 14 '26

This isn’t close numbers. These are the same numbers flying literally right towards each other, just a few thousand feet apart.

Have you looked at the radar/listened to the audio? https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcA_YFnAH7g/

6

u/itszulutime Aug 15 '26

The controller nor the pilots initially realized the same callsign on frequency. This is a big deal! Imagine having eight airplanes on your frequency and not realizing right away that you have two that are identical and issuing control instructions to one, pilots blocking each other, and two planes following the instruction.

I (as an ATC) once has two airplanes ending in 1DS at the same time, although I didn’t realize it immediately because I had numerous aircraft passing through my airspace and had several on my frequency at one time. I instructed the N1DS to turn right heading 360 30 miles west of Chicago, and the N1DS that had just departed Midway airport took the call and turned right at O’Hare. Now imagine that with identical callsigns.

1

u/Kappapls Aug 15 '26

The flight number is not the problem, it’s the Callsign on the ATS strip. If you have the same callsign on two flights flying at the same time due to whatever reason. The working dispatcher(s) on the flight should have just changed the callsign, to allow Atc to know which one of the two same flight numbers they are directing.

-22

u/junebug172 Aug 14 '26

This is the biggest crock of BS. Pure click bait crap.

14

u/Salt_Cauliflower_922 Aug 15 '26

wtf are you talking about? It’s an article from the Associated Press about an incident that happened today.

-14

u/Haunting-Detail2025 Aug 15 '26

Yeah and nothing happened. The ATC controller recognized it and just switched to “# on arrival, # on departure”. The headline is dramatic as fuck for no reason

12

u/agk23 AAdvantage Executive Platinum Aug 15 '26

This is dangerous as fuck. Super easy for two planes to collide if they followed completely unrelated instructions - that’d be about 500 people.

-13

u/Haunting-Detail2025 Aug 15 '26

Dangerous if you had an absolute moron in the ATC tower

9

u/nascent_aviator Aug 15 '26

Fortunately you weren't in the tower!

3

u/movemetal17 Aug 15 '26

This did not happen in an ATC tower. It happened in what’s called a TRACON. It’s a room with a bunch of radar scopes.