WASHINGTON – Federal investigators say a Southwest Airlines jet landed on the identical runway as a small private plane that had stopped after an air traffic controller allowed each planes to land on the identical runway in California in October.
The National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday that the planes were inside 900 feet (275 meters) of one another before the smaller plane taxied off the runway.
The board said in a preliminary report that investigators interviewed the controller, a supervisor and others involved within the Oct. 19 incident in Long Beach, California. There was no comment on these interviews.
The NTSB said an air traffic controller told the crew of a four-seat Diamond DA40 to land on the major runway and stop in need of an intersecting runway. Approximately two minutes later, the air traffic controller cleared the pilots of the Southwest Boeing 737 to land on the major runway, and shortly thereafter the Diamond crew informed the air traffic controller that they’d been stopped on the runway as instructed.
As they accomplished their landing, the Southwest pilots told air traffic controllers that there was one other plane on the major runway, the NTSB said. Both aircraft taxied to their parking areas without further incident.
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