A close call in Nashville between an Alaska Airlines and Southwest Airlines 737 jet avoided catastrophe but serves as another wake-up call.
BAN Incident: Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 Forced To Abort Takeoff At High Speed To Avoid Southwest Airlines 737-700
On September 12, 2024 at Nashville International Airport (BNA), an incident occurred on runway 13 involving two commercial jets:
- Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 (registration code N919AK)
- AS369 to Seattle (SEA)
- three-year-old jet
- Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-700 (registration code N225WN)
- WN2029 to Jacksonville (JAX)
- 19-year-old jet
AS369 was cleared for takeoff and pilots initiated the takeoff roll. But as the aircraft hurdled down runway 13, accelerating to 100 knots, pilots heard that WN2029 was given clearance to cross the same runway.
The Alaska pilots aborted takeoff, which caused the tires of the 737 MAX 9 aircraft to deflate:
The FAA is investigating a potential near collision that occurred between an Alaska Airlines Boeing B737MAX9 aircraft (N919AK) and a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-700 aircraft in Nashville.
The Alaska Airlines deflated the tires in the act of aborting the take-off, to avoid a… pic.twitter.com/RibsttbyH6
— FL360aero (@fl360aero) September 12, 2024
There were no injuries and it is not (yet) clear how close of a call this was, though it appears to be another Air Traffic Control (ATC) error.
The NSTB has initiated an investigation:
NTSB is investigating the Sept. 12 runway incursion at Nashville International Airport involving Alaska Airlines flight 369, a Boeing 737 Max 9, and Southwest Airlines flight 2029, a Boeing 737-700.
— NTSB Newsroom (@NTSB_Newsroom) September 12, 2024
I don’t want to sensationalize any incident unnecessarily and will await the NTSB investigation, but this appears to be another needless safety incident and even if the planes remained at quite a distance from each other (that part is not clear yet), it just seems clear there is no reason for incidents like this…that there is something fundamentally wrong with the ATC system in the USA.
While I have not opined yet on the latest Department of Transportation investigation into frequent flyer programs, I do wish that the federal government would make ATC modernization its top goal.
image: @fl360aero/X // Hat Tip: AvHerald
