Near disaster when American Airlines plane passes in front of departing Delta Jet in New York
Near disaster when American Airlines plane passes in front of departing Delta Jet in New York
On Friday night, American Airlines flight 106 from New York JFK to London Heathrow had a near collision with a Delta Air Lines Boeing 737 en route to Santo Domingo. The American plane appears to have attempted to depart wrong runway. The incident was first reported early Saturday morning of aviation watchdog JonNYC.
The American Airlines plane was supposed to leave runway 4L, but stayed below 31[ads1]L – and crossed in front of the Delta plane. Air traffic control shouted, “Delta 1943 cancels takeoff clearance!” The Delta aircraft aborted takeoff and cleared the runway.
ATC:Shit! Delta 1943 cancels take-off clearance! Delta 1943 cancels take-off clearance.
Participate: Rejects
ATC: Right, jeez, Delta 1943. Delta 1943 can you taxi, or do you need a few minutes to run controls?
Participate: Yes, we can get off the Delta 1943 runway.
Meanwhile, air traffic control had words for American crossing in front of an active runway:
American: The last clearance we got, we got cleared to cross, is that right?
ATC: American 106 Heavy, we’re leaving runway 4 left, I guess we’re listening to the tapes, but you’re leaving runway 4 left.
JonNYC shares the audio excerpts from the air traffic control:
Two audio excerpts from @liveatc pic.twitter.com/4ruAWgVO4b
— 🇺🇦 JonNYC 🇺🇦 (@xJonNYC) 14 January 2023
14 seconds into this illustration, you can see the Delta plane begin its takeoff roll, aborting at the last moment as the American Airlines Boeing 777-200 crossed directly in front of it.
— Casey Wade (@CaseWade) 14 January 2023
A passenger on the Delta flight, Brian Healy, reports that the Delta 1943 had been accelerating for “2 or 3 seconds” when it began to decelerate, to the astonishment of passengers who “gasp[ed]” and fell into “total silence” before hearing from the captain who told the passengers that they had been ordered by air traffic control to abort. They taxied back to the gate, and tried again the next morning.
The pilot came on after a couple of agonizing minutes to report that ATC had ordered the takeoff to abort. Took an hour to taxi back to the gate…and I took a pass on going back to JFK this morning when DL1943 finally took off 15 hours later.
— Brian Healy (@bhealyNYC) 14 January 2023
Here’s a report that JonNYC relayed from someone on board the American plane.
“was at AA106 last night and looked at our plane on PlaneFinder. Approaching the active runway. Assumed we were going to turn right. Crossed the active runway and the pilot applied a LOT of power. Seemed extremely strange. Then sat motionless in about 20 minutes. Make more sense now that I see this”
— 🇺🇦 JonNYC 🇺🇦 (@xJonNYC) 14 January 2023
Ultimately, air traffic saw what was happening and acted quickly as it appears the American flight to London misheard instructions. I have reached out to American Airlines for a statement and will update if I hear back.
