An American Airlines flight from Miami to Bermuda was forced to reject takeoff Friday evening to avoid a collision on the runway.
The crew of the American Airbus A319, operating as Flight 308, spotted a business jet entering the same runway as they were accelerating for departure and aborted takeoff. The two aircraft came within about a third of a mile of each other.
Air traffic control recordings captured a tense exchange between a controller and one of the business jet’s pilots.
“Four Quebec Sierra, you just crossed an active runway, hold shorter eight runway eight, left,” the controller said.
“You just told me to cross the runway, sir,” the pilot responded.
“No, we said Amerijet 461,” the controller shot back.
No injuries were reported on either airplane, and Flight 308 departed for Bermuda later that night.
Aerotime reported that the business jet involved in the incident is an Embraer Phenom 300 operated by fractional ownership company NetJets. NetJets told the outlet that the aircraft was under the operational control of a third-party maintenance vendor when the close call took place.
The FAA is investigating the incident.
