New details from federal investigators reveal how a Southwest flight narrowly avoided a collision at Chicago’s Midway Airport. The NTSB report highlights pilot confusion and a missed instruction from air traffic control. NBC 5’s Keenan Willard has the latest.
A new report is shedding additional light on the moments before a near-miss between a Southwest Airlines flight and a private plane at Chicago Midway Airport last month.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says the two planes came within 200 feet of each other before the Southwest pilots pulled up and avoided a crash.
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WATCH HERE“You could have a tragedy, a bad outcome,” said Ladd Sanger, managing partner at Slack Davis Sanger.
Video from Feb. 25 showed a Southwest flight about to land at Midway when a business jet operated by Flexjet started to cross the runway ahead of the landing commercial flight.
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SIGN UP The Southwest pilots called off their landing, narrowly preventing a collision.
“It’s a near-miss, and it’s a scary situation,” said Sanger.
In their latest findings, federal investigators laid out the confusion on the runway in the moments before the near-miss.
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The NTSB’s preliminary report found the captain of the Flexjet plane believed he was approaching runway 31L instead of 31C. The crew stated they looked left and right but did not observe the Southwest airplane on final descent.
The report also said that as the Flexjet plane approached runway 31C, the ground controller instructed the plane to hold short, but the transmission was not acknowledged.
“They were probably confused, but they didn’t clear up their confusion using the tools available to them,” Sanger said.
An aviation expert told NBC 5 that pictures from the NTSB report showed the runway where the near-miss happened was clearly marked.
He said these findings highlight the need for constant communication between air traffic controllers and flight crews, especially at airports with complex runway layouts.
“Because had there been a few feet difference or timing, it could have been a really bad outcome,” Sanger said.
NBC 5 reached out to Southwest for a response to the preliminary NTSB report. The airline declined to comment as the agency’s investigation was still ongoing.
Flexjet also responded, with a spokesperson saying, “We are still in the process of an ongoing investigation. Any action to rectify and ensure the highest safety standards will be taken.”
