An American Airlines jet aborting takeoff at Los Angeles International Airport narrowly avoided a serious runway incident late Sunday night. As American Airlines Flight 2453 was accelerating for departure to Boston, a cargo plane—AeroLogic Flight 619, fresh from Shanghai—unexpectedly crossed its path on the runway, reports CNN.
The sequence began when air traffic control instructed AeroLogic's Boeing 777 to cross over runway 25L while taxiing to its gate. Instead, the cargo pilots turned right, ending up on runway 25R, directly in the path of the departing American jet. Audio from LiveATC.net captures the urgency, with a controller telling "German Cargo 619" to stop and quickly canceling the passenger jet's takeoff clearance.
The American flight, clocking roughly 167mph, braked hard and came to a stop about 1.3 miles from the cargo plane, according to Flightradar24. The Federal Aviation Administration later stated that the AeroLogic plane crossed the runway "without authorization." Why the cargo pilots made the incorrect turn remains unclear. The live audio also shows some confusion on the controller's part, who at times misidentified the flight as "419" and pressed the crew to clear the runway quickly due to other arrivals.
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"What was fortunate here is that the runway the American jet was taking off on is almost 2 1/2 miles long," aviation expert Steve Ganyard tells ABC News. "If the runway had been any shorter, [or] it had been a different airport, this could have been a tragedy." In a statement, American Airlines thanked its pilots for their "quick action" and acknowledged the delay; the Boston-bound flight, which the Hill notes had 94 passengers and seven crew members on board, returned to the gate and took off more than two hours behind schedule. AeroLogic didn't immediately issue a comment. No injuries were reported.
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