VIRGINIA, USA — The FAA has launched an investigation following a near miss incident between two aircraft at Ronald Reagan National Airport.
On Thursday morning, a video was uploaded to YouTube of audio from control towers at DCA. The video begins with an air traffic controller instructing the pilot of the JetBlue 1554 aircraft to “line up and wait” at runway 4 for take off.
Moments later, a pilot of Southwest 2937 radio’s the tower requesting to “taxi” to runway 1. Tower control advises Southwest to cross runway 4 via the C lane to get to runway 1.
As Southwest begins to head the course, another air traffic controller clears JetBlue for takeoff from runway 4. This is when things get messy.
Both Southwest and JetBlue aircraft start heading towards one another. As a third air traffic controller begins giving another pilot directions, everyone in the tower breaks out into chaos.
You can hear controllers yelling for someone to tell Southwest to stop their movements. Another is yelling for JetBlue to do the same. Then multiple people get on the mic and start frantically asking the pilots of both JetBlue and Southwest to stop.
The Southwest aircraft stops, just a few hundred feet short of the JetBlue aircraft. The pilot radios the tower saying they were cleared to cross runway 4.
A fourth controller is heard over the radio, she begins to take over the flow of traffic. She clears another flight that was sitting on runway 1 to take off. Then, she instructed the JetBlue aircraft to make a U-turn and head back to runway 4. This gives the Southwest flight time to cross runway 4 into the adjacent runway.
JetBlue issued a statement explaining the situation and said "Safety is JetBlue's first priority and we will work closely with federal officials as this event is fully investigated."
WUSA9 reached out to the FAA to verify the video and they confirmed this did occur at the DCA Airport. They are now investigating the near miss situation.
Southwest issued a statement saying that they are aware of what happened on Thursday and are cooperating with the FAA in this investigation.