Narrative:

Our clearance upon takeoff out of sdl; runway 21; was right turn; climb to 5;000 feet. Around 3;000 feet; maybe a little before; we got a traffic alert. At first it was hard to decipher if the threat was below us or above. Our range was set to 6 miles; the most zoomed in setting; and the screen showed two aircraft almost 'overlapped'; one below us by 500 feet and one above by 500 feet. Shortly; we understood it was the one above that was posing the threat so we quickly leveled off while I was searching for the target. I located him fairly quickly and we stayed level at 3;000 feet until passing clear. When I checked on with departure I informed them that we had leveled off momentarily for traffic. We asked ATC if he saw aircraft Y above us and ATC said they didn't and that the traffic was in sdl's class D airspace. It appears the tower gave us instructions that put us on a collision course with aircraft Y. He also did not inform us there was traffic to be looking for.one additional contribution to this event was the possibility that the tower controller was already flustered by an event that took place several minutes before when he cleared one of our company aircraft to line up and wait with a small trainer in a 2 mile final. By the time he cleared the aircraft for takeoff the trainer was less than 1/2 mile final and the other company aircraft ran out of time to complete the takeoff; though they didn't know it. The controller finally asked the trainer to go-around but did not abort the takeoff of the aircraft so for a few moments in time it appeared our company aircraft would rotate right into the small trainer above. Luckily; the company aircraft aborted the takeoff as soon as the trainer overhead came into their view. The event made everyone's heart race a bit and I believe this could have contributed to our event.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air carrier First Officer reported an NMAC shortly after takeoff from SDL airport.

Narrative: Our clearance upon takeoff out of SDL; Runway 21; was right turn; climb to 5;000 feet. Around 3;000 feet; maybe a little before; we got a traffic alert. At first it was hard to decipher if the threat was below us or above. Our range was set to 6 miles; the most zoomed in setting; and the screen showed two aircraft almost 'overlapped'; one below us by 500 feet and one above by 500 feet. Shortly; we understood it was the one above that was posing the threat so we quickly leveled off while I was searching for the target. I located him fairly quickly and we stayed level at 3;000 feet until passing clear. When I checked on with departure I informed them that we had leveled off momentarily for traffic. We asked ATC if he saw Aircraft Y above us and ATC said they didn't and that the traffic was in SDL's class D airspace. It appears the tower gave us instructions that put us on a collision course with Aircraft Y. He also did not inform us there was traffic to be looking for.One additional contribution to this event was the possibility that the tower controller was already flustered by an event that took place several minutes before when he cleared one of our company aircraft to line up and wait with a small trainer in a 2 mile final. By the time he cleared the aircraft for takeoff the trainer was less than 1/2 mile final and the other company aircraft ran out of time to complete the takeoff; though they didn't know it. The controller finally asked the trainer to go-around but did not abort the takeoff of the aircraft so for a few moments in time it appeared our company aircraft would rotate right into the small trainer above. Luckily; the company aircraft aborted the takeoff as soon as the trainer overhead came into their view. The event made everyone's heart race a bit and I believe this could have contributed to our event.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.