Federal safety officials are probing an incident at New York’s LaGuardia airport earlier this month, during which a Republic Airways jet had to abort takeoff to avoid a collision with a United Airlines Holdings Inc. plane taxiing on the same runway.
The US Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board confirmed in statements Monday that they’re investigating the incident, which occurred May 6 around 12:35 a.m. local time. The FAA said an air traffic controller canceled the takeoff clearance for Republic Airways Flight 4736 upon noticing the runway was still in use. According to live flight tracker Flightradar24, the planes came within about a quarter mile of each other.
In radio communications from LiveATC.net, which streams and archives thousands of air traffic control feeds, a controller can be heard apologizing for the mishap. “Sorry about that. I thought United had cleared well before that,” he said in the audio clip, which was posted on YouTube by the aviation news channel VASAviation.
United and Republic, which was operating the flight for American Airlines Group Inc., referred questions to the FAA.
The incident was first reported by the View From the Wing travel blog on Saturday.
Photo: A taxi passes in front of the air traffic control tower at LaGuardia Airport (LGA) in the Queens borough of New York, U.S., on Friday, Jan. 25, 2019. The Federal Aviation Administration temporarily halted flights into New York’s LaGuardia Airport because of a shortage of air-traffic control staff, escalating the pressure on President Donald Trump and lawmakers to end the government shutdown.
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