Southwest Airlines flight in near miss with LaGuardia Airport’s control tower: FAA investigating how plane with 150 passengers on board veered off course before air traffic controllers screamed ‘Go around, go around!’
- Southwest Flight 147 came within 65 feet of the air traffic control tower
- The plane was ordered to fly up and then diverted to an airport in Baltimore
- FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board have launched an investigation
A Southwest plane came dangerously close to hitting LaGuardia Airport’s air control tower.
Southwest Flight 147 from Nashville to New York veered off course when it landed around 1 p.m. on March 23 due to bad weather.
The Boeing 737 plane, with 150 people on board, came within 20 meters of the control tower.
The plane circled the airport once and then dived down to a height of 300 feet, causing panic in the air traffic control tower.
In audio recorded by LiveATC.net, you can hear air traffic control personnel shouting, “Go around! Go around it!’
Southwest Flight 147, carrying 150 people, came within 20 meters of the air traffic control tower
The plane was ordered to abort the landing and fly up 2,000 feet.
The controller joked that the plane was not properly aligned with the runway.
“It was just east of the final. He had no intention of landing on the runway,” the controller said, shortly after giving the order to “continue climbing.”
The Southwest flight was then diverted to Baltimore, where it performed a safe landing “after encountering turbulence and poor visibility at New York LaGuardia Airport,” Southwest said in a statement.
The near miss is now under investigation by the FAA.
The Federal Aviation Administration’s investigation focuses on the circumstances that led the Southwest plane to come close to hitting the air traffic control tower.
“The FAA is investigating and will determine whether the aircraft flew over the LaGuardia tower,” an agency spokesperson said in a statement.
Southwest Airlines said they were “assessing the event” as part of their “safety systems.”
The LaGuardia air control tower, pictured, was nearly hit by the Southwest plane
The National Transportation Safety Board also announced they would investigate the incident but do not plan to release any immediate reports.
Southwest’s air tower incident is part of a larger pattern of near-collisions at U.S. airports, an issue the FAA wants to get to the bottom of.
A panel of experts released a report in November that identified several factors contributing to near-collisions, including irregular funding, outdated technology, burdensome training conditions and poorly staffed air traffic control towers.
The report stated that the combination of these factors resulted in ‘an erosion of safety margins that needs to be urgently addressed’.