CHICAGO — It was a close call at a Chicago airport Tuesday morning when two planes nearly crashed into each other.
According to CBS News, a Southwest Airlines plane and a private business jet narrowly avoided one another at Chicago’s Midway Airport.
Video obtained by CBS shows Southwest Flight 2504 from Omaha, Nebraska coming in for a landing at the airport when the pilot quickly pulls up to avoid a business jet that was taxiing across the runway.
An audio recording from air traffic control reportedly shows that the private plane had been cleared to cross one runway but held at another. According to CBS, the pilot of the private jet repeated the instructions to the tower incorrectly, which corrected them. The pilot then repeated the instructions correctly, and, according to CBS, about 30 seconds later, the Southwest pilot could be heard saying they were “going around.”
Southwest Airlines told CBS News that the crew of the Boeing 737 MAX performed a “precautionary go-around to avoid a possible conflict with another aircraft that entered the runway.”
According to tracking site flightradar24.com, the business jet was a FlexJet Bombardier Challenger headed for Knoxville, Tennessee.
Both the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) say they are investigating the incident.
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