The head of a federal agency investigating the near-collision at Midway Airport between a Southwest plane and a business jet has said the business jet pilot appeared to fail to follow instructions.
“We don’t believe that this was an air traffic control issue,” said Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, in an appearance on “Fox & Friends” Wednesday morning. “It appears this was a failure of the flight crew from Flexjet to listen and abide by the instructions of air traffic control.”
The NTSB is continuing to investigate, as is the Federal Aviation Administration. But Homendy said the crew of the smaller plane, operated by private jet company Flexjet, was supposed to line up and wait short of the runway that the Southwest plane was landing on. The plane failed to do so.
Homendy’s comments came a day after the near-collision at Midway, in which video on social media showed Southwest flight 2504 from Omaha, Nebraska, abruptly changing plans as it nears landing. The commercial plane had nearly touched down, the video shows, when the smaller jet began to cross in front of it, and the Southwest plane pulled up and returned to the sky. The smaller plane proceeded across the runway.
The Tuesday near-collision was not the first time in recent years aircraft have come so close to colliding at Midway that the FAA took note. But aviation experts have said aborted landings are not entirely unusual, and pilots train to handle such situations.
Indeed, shortly before the near-collision at Midway, an American Airlines plane arriving at Washington, D.C.’s Reagan National Airport discontinued landing, performing what’s known as a “go-around” at an air traffic controller’s instruction to avoid getting too close to another aircraft departing from the same runway, the FAA said.
At Midway, the Southwest pilots had to act quickly to avoid the other plane, while the incident at Reagan was more routine with pilots following the tower’s instructions. Southwest and American airlines issued statements after the aborted landings saying that their flights landed safely after their crews made precautionary go-around maneuvers.
Aviation experts have said aborted landings can happen for a variety of reasons, from bad weather to a deer walking on a runway. Passengers might not notice a go-around if the plane is still flying high enough when executed.
Air traffic controllers at airport towers have sophisticated software to manage landings and runway crossings, helping prevent collisions, travel industry analyst Henry Harteveldt previously told the Tribune. When near-collisions happen, like the situation Tuesday at Midway, pilots have been trained extensively to know how to handle them, he said.
The reasons a pilot might “go around” could be many, he said. A pilot might see what looks like debris on a runway, or an earlier flight could be departing slower than expected. Another plane could be crossing a runway or be located too close, which can happen if there is a delay in action on the part of a pilot by even a few seconds, putting the plane in the wrong place on the runway at the wrong time, he said.
Nearly 4 out of every 1,000 arrivals at the nation’s 30 busiest airports involved go-arounds in fiscal year 2023, according to a recent FAA report. The agency handles about 45,000 flights a day.
As part of its investigation, the NTSB will collect air traffic control communications and has asked for the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from Flexjet and the flight data recorder from Southwest, Homendy said. The agency will also conduct interviews. A preliminary report is expected in about a month, the agency has said.
In the meantime, President Donald Trump weighed in Wednesday morning, praising the Southwest pilots on his social media platform, Truth Social.
“GREAT JOB BY THE SOUTHWEST PILOTS IN CHICAGO,” he posted. “A NEARLY TRAGIC CLOSE CALL. PERHAPS SUSPEND THE PILOTS LICENSE OF THE OTHER PLANE, WHO MUST HAVE BEEN ‘SLEEPING!’”
Hours after the go-around, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted on X (formerly Twitter) that pilots must follow the instructions of air traffic controllers.
“If they do not, their licenses will be pulled,” he said.
Flexjet pushed back on Homendy’s comments, saying laying blame was “premature.”
“We do not comment or speculate about any aspect of a safety investigation, especially in these very early stages, just as we expect all other professional organizations and agencies will do,” a Flexjet spokesperson said in a statement. “A genuine safety culture is one of continued learning to raise standards, and that is precisely what we are undertaking.”
Flexjet said it would take any action to correct the situation and “ensure the highest safety standards.”
Audio recording of communication between the smaller jet and the control tower recorded its pilot misstating instructions from a ground tower employee, who repeated that the pilot should “hold short” of a runway. About 30 seconds later, the ground tower ordered the pilot to “hold your position there.”
The tower employee is then heard saying: “FlexJet560, your instructions were to hold short of runway 31 center.”
Separately, a recording of communication between the Southwest crew and another ground tower employee captured its pilot reporting “Southwest 2504 going around” and following directions to climb back to 3,000 feet.
Seconds later, the audio captures the pilot asking the tower: “Southwest 2504, how’d that happen?”
The near-collision came after a string of U.S. crashes that has left some travelers rattled. In January, a midair collision in Washington, D.C., between an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army helicopter killed everyone aboard both aircraft. It was the deadliest plane crash in the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, and the first deadly crash of any kind involving a U.S. airliner since February 2009.
Days later, on Jan. 31, a medical transportation plane crashed in Philadelphia after taking off from a small airport, killing six people aboard and one person on the ground. In early February, a single-engine turboprop commuter flight crashed on Alaska sea ice, killing 10 aboard.
Later in February, a Delta plane arriving at Toronto’s Pearson Airport from Minneapolis flipped over. All those injured were later released from the hospital.
Ultimately, aviation is safe, Homendy said, adding that 22 million passengers flew out of Midway in 2023 and landed at their destinations.
“The biggest risk is getting in your car to and from the airport, not on the plane,” she said.
The Associated Press contributed
