Close call at Nashville airport came after planes were directed to same runway, probe shows

WASHINGTON — Investigators said Wednesday that air traffic controllers cleared an Alaska Airlines jet to take off from Nashville last month after telling pilots of a Southwest Airlines jet to cross the same runway.

Pilots of the Alaska plane aborted their Sept. 12 takeoff at Nashville International Airport, applying the brakes so hard that the tires deflated as they are designed to do when they get too hot.

The National Transportation Safety Board gave a timeline of the incident as part of a brief preliminary report. The agency said it is continuing to investigate the incident. The board usually issues a probable cause for accidents and close calls after lengthy reviews.

There were 176 passengers and crew members on the Alaska jet and 141 on the Southwest plane. No injuries were reported, according to the NTSB.

The agency said it listened to conversations between pilots and controllers and retrieved flight data recorders from both planes. Investigators got the cockpit voice recorder from the Alaska Airlines jet, but the recorder on the Southwest plane was overwritten after the plane took off.

The NTSB said that a controller told the Alaska crew to line up on runway 13 and wait for permission to take off. About a minute later, a controller told the Southwest pilots to cross runway 13 on their way to another runway, and 15 seconds after that, a controller cleared the Alaska plane for takeoff.

The Alaska plane started down the runway before the pilots cut short their takeoff. Fuse plugs deflated on all four tires on the main landing gear, the NTSB said.