Ninth Close Runway Call at LAX

Published Dec 27, 2007 11:00 PM

Since the beginning of 2007, there have been nine "close calls" on LAX's runways with the latest on Wednesday evening at 8:43 p.m. An American Airlines jet arriving from Baja California just landed on the outer runway and needed to cross the inner runway where a Mexicana Airlines jet was preparing for take off.

The air traffic controller told the American Airlines pilot to stop before crossing the inner runway, Gregor told the newspaper, but the pilot read back instructions that he was going to proceed across the runway to a terminal gate. The erroneous statement was not caught by the controller, nor an assistant working at LAX Tower, Gregor told the Breeze.

The same controller then cleared the Mexicana flight to take off for Morelia, Mexico, before realizing the American Airlines jetliner was about to roll onto the runway, the FAA said, according to the newspaper. [NBC 4]

As the Mexicana Airlines flight was rolling down the runway to take off, the controller canceled the clearance and told American Airlines to stop. The incident is being logged as a controller error because it is the their job to ensure the pilot's read-back is correct.

Incidents like this just remind us why Burbank Airport is our favorite choice when it comes to flying.

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Ninth Close Runway Call at LAX