Southwest and Alaska Airlines planes nearly collide on Nashville airport runway, prompting FAA investigation

CNN
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The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are currently investigating a near-collision between two aircraft on the runway of a Nashville airport on Thursday morning – the latest near-collision involving commercial flights.

The crew of Alaska Airlines Flight 369 “aborted takeoff” at Nashville International Airport around 9:15 a.m. CT when Southwest Airlines Flight 2029 “was cleared to cross the end of the same runway,” according to the FAA. It’s unclear how close the two planes came to colliding.

The Alaska Airlines flight, carrying 176 passengers and six crew members, braked so suddenly that the crew “reported tires blown out during braking,” the FAA said. No injuries were reported.

“The Alaska aircraft, en route to Seattle, had received clearance for takeoff from air traffic control,” Alaska Airlines said in a statement. “We are grateful for the expertise of our pilots, who immediately applied the brakes to prevent the incident from escalating.”

Southwest Airlines said in a statement that it was “in contact with the FAA and NTSB and will participate in the investigation” and that “nothing is more important to Southwest than the safety of our customers and employees.”

The NTSB is investigating the incident between the Alaska Airlines plane, a Boeing 737 Max 9, and the Southwest Airlines plane, a Boeing 737-700, the agency said in a post on X.

This is the 14th NTSB investigation into a runway incursion involving commercial flights or commercial flights since the beginning of 2023. The Nashville incident also came just two days after two Delta Air Lines planes collided as they both taxied for takeoff from Atlanta’s busy Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

Just two months ago, a scheduled flight had to be aborted landing at New York’s Syracuse Hancock International Airport because another aircraft took off from the same runway it was planning to use.

Awareness of runway incursions by commercial flights at major airports has been heightened following a near-collision between two aircraft on a runway at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport in January 2023. The near-collision sparked numerous investigations and prompted the FAA to convene a rare, all-day safety summit.

An NTSB report in June later found that the incident at JFK was caused by pilots who were repeatedly distracted in the cockpit.

At the time, investigators called on the FAA to install more technology at airports that can warn air traffic controllers of a possible collision on a runway.

A month later, in February 2023, one of the country’s closest near-collisions in years occurred between a landing FedEx cargo plane and a Southwest Airlines jet preparing to take off from an airport runway in Austin, Texas. Investigators said in a June hearing that it happened because of an air traffic controller’s incorrect assumptions in thick fog.

The NTSB issued seven recommendations based on the Austin incident, including installing technology at all commercial airports that detects aircraft and vehicle movements on the ground. The NTSB also called on the FAA to require pilots to frequently report their position when taxiing in reduced visibility.