NTSB investigating runway incident at Sarasota airport

By Ross Levitt, CNN

The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced Monday night that it is investigating the first of two February incidents involving a plane that was forced to go around because of another plane on the same runway.

The NTSB says the incident occurred on February 16 at Sarasota Bradenton International Airport when an “Air Canada Rouge A-321 was cleared for takeoff on Runway 14 as an American Airlines B-737 was cleared to land on the same runway.”

According to a tweet from the agency, the American Airlines flight “self-initiated a go-around.”

The NTSB does not say how close the two aircraft were to one another, nor does it explicitly call the incident a runway incursion. It says no one was hurt and that it expects to issue a preliminary report in two to three weeks.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which is also investigating the incident, tells CNN that an air traffic controller cleared the Air Canada flight to take off after clearing the American flight to land on the same runway.

“After the controller advised the American flight crew that Air Canada was departing, the American flight crew discontinued their landing,” the FAA statement said. “The FAA estimates the aircraft were approximately 3,100 feet apart when the American jet began its climb-out.”

A string of runway incidents

News of the runway incident comes fresh on the heels of a separate event that took place Monday morning.

The FAA is investigating contact between two United Airlines flights at Boston Logan International Airport, the agency said in a statement to CNN.

“As a tow tug was pushing it back from the gate at Boston Logan International Airport, the right wing of United Airlines Flight 515 struck the tail of United Airlines Flight 267 around 8:30 a.m. local time this morning,” the FAA statement said.

“Both aircraft were Boeing 737s that were scheduled for departure,” the statement added.

The two incidents are just the latest in a string of five other close calls this year, including one at Boston Logan last week.

Air traffic controllers stopped a departing private jet from running into a JetBlue flight as it was coming in to land at Logan last Monday night, according to the FAA.

The FAA and the NTSB are investigating that incident.

The two planes involved came within 565 feet (172 meters) of colliding, according to Flightradar24’s preliminary review of its data.

The NTSB is also investigating four other runway incursions involving commercial airliners at major US airports this year.

It’s investigating a possible “runway incursion” in Burbank, California, involving Mesa and SkyWest regional airliners.

Three other incidents occurred at Honolulu, Austin and New York’s JFK airport this year.

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CNN’s Pete Muntean and Michelle Watson contributed to this report.