An Alaska Airlines airplane aborted takeoff on a runway at Tennessee’s Nashville International Airport on Thursday to avoid a potential collision with a Southwest Airlines jet, the airline said.
Alaska Airlines 369, a Boeing 737 MAX 9 airplane with 176 passengers and six crew on board, aborted takeoff around 9:15 a.m. ET due to a potential traffic conflict after it had received clearance for takeoff from air traffic control, the airline said.
The Federal Aviation Administration said Southwest Airlines Flight 2029 – a Boeing 737-700 – had been cleared to cross the end of the same runway and the agency is investigating the incident.
The Alaska pilots immediately applied the brakes to prevent the incident from escalating, the carrier added. The plane had been scheduled to fly to Seattle, and passengers were being moved to a new plane.
The FAA and Alaska said the 737 MAX 9’s tires were blown during braking.
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Southwest did not immediately comment. Alaska said maintenance technicians in Nashville were inspecting the aircraft.
Last year, a series of near-miss incidents raised concerns about U.S. aviation safety and the strain on understaffed air traffic control operations.
FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker told reporters on Wednesday that the number of serious runway incursion incidents had fallen by over 50% but “we continue to work the issue by creating more technology for controllers, more technology in the arrival facilities.”
In June, the National Transportation Safety Board found that incorrect assumptions on the part of an air traffic controller led to a February 2023 near-collision between a FedEx plane and a Southwest aircraft in Austin, Texas.
The two planes came within about 170 feet (52 meters) of each other when the FedEx Boeing 767 was forced to fly over the Southwest 737-700 to avoid a crash in poor visibility conditions.
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said in June the board wants low-visibility training for controllers and faster deployment of technology at airports and cockpit alerts to prevent future near-collisions.
“This should serve as a wake-up call to so many – these are warning signs and that means take action now,” Homendy said.
