Feb. 25 (UPI) — Southwest Airlines flight 2504 narrowly missed colliding with a privately owned business jet that was taxiing across the runway on which the airliner was to land at Chicago’s Midway Airport.
The airliner’s pilots aborted the landing attempt while just inches away from touching down and throttled the aircraft’s engine to pass about 250 above the taxiing aircraft, CBS News reported.
Flight controllers had cleared the taxiing Flexjet Bombardier Challenger 350 aircraft to cross one runway but wait before crossing another, but the pilot of that aircraft incorrectly repeated the instructions to the control tower.
An air traffic controller corrected the pilot, who then correctly repeated the controller’s instructions but did not stop before crossing the runway on which flight 2504 had been cleared to land at 8:50 a.m. CST, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The apparent pilot error blocked the runway as flight 2504 attempted its initial landing and forced its crew to abort, the FAA told the New York Post.
The Southwest airliner’s crew about 30 seconds later radioed the tower to say they were “going around” to attempt another landing after aborting that attempt due to the taxiing private jet.
Southwest Airlines officials afterward confirmed the crew of its Boeing 737 Max 8 did a “precautionary go-around to avoid a possible conflict with another aircraft that entered the runway.”
The Southwest Airlines jet was arriving in Chicago from Omaha, Neb., while the taxiing private jet was headed for Knoxville, Tenn.
Flight 2504 safely landed about 15 minutes after the near-miss, which did not cause injuries to passengers in either aircraft. The FAA is investigating the near-collision.
No information was provided regarding the number of passengers and crew aboard the respective aircraft.