AA1388 - Incident: American B738 and Southwest B737 at Phoenix on Aug 7th 2023

An American Airlines Boeing 737-800, registration N305NX performing flight AA-1388 from Phoenix,AZ to New York JFK,NY (USA), was cleared for takeoff from Phoenix's runway 26.

At almost the same time (within seconds) a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-700, registration N406WN performing flight WN-2286 from Phoenix,AZ to Austin,TX (USA), was cleared for takeoff from Phoenix's runway 25R (left of runway 26) on a different tower frequency.

Both aircraft were climbing out in parallel, the aircraft were being handed off to departure and were temporarily out of radio contact, when the American Airlines aircraft began to turn left into the flight path of WN-2286, both tower controllers as well as the departure controller instructed American to turn right and Southwest to climb with raised voices. When AA-1388 finally established radio contact with departure the controller instructed the crew to immediately turn right and queried the crew whether they had visual contact to the other Boeing then instructed the American to maintain visual separation, and after WN-2286 reported on the frequency told WN-2286 to climb. After the flight trajectories began to diverge again and the voices calmed down the crew of AA-1388 tried to explain they were given the BROAK1 standard departure requiring a left turn after becoming airborne and were following that procedure, the controller stated they had been given the FORPE1 departure and he was done with this.

Both aircraft continued to their destinations without further incidents.

ADS-B data suggest that the separation between the aircraft reduced to 300 feet vertical and 0.33nm horizontal between 00:07:44Z and 00:07:55Z before the trajectories began to diverge again.

Flight Trajectories, map turned 90 degrees clockwise, north to the right (Graphics: AVH/Google Earth):

FORPE One SID (Graphics: FAA):

BROAK One SID (Graphics: FAA):

Related Flight: AA1388, American Airlines News