Thursday, July 12, 2007

FLL runway incursion on July 11, 2007

An article in the Miami Herald  reports that two aircraft came within 100 feet of colliding at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL) yesterday.

According to the article, Delta Flight 1489, inbound from ATL, was on approach to FLL when a plane operated by United Airlines "missed its turn onto a taxiway and entered the runway where the other was about to land." The Delta flight executed a go-around. United Flight 1544 subsequently departed for Washington-Dulles without further incident.

The Miami Herald article notes:
The Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport had three runway incursions during the 12 months that ended May 31, according to FAA records. Two were blamed on pilot error and the third was ruled an air traffic control error. Nationwide, the FAA reported 330 runway incursions in fiscal year 2006.
The FAA is investigating the incident.

UPDATE: Here is the link to the NTSB factual report on this incident: The NTSB has classified this incident as a 'pilot deviation.