Summary
- The NTSB concludes that the Hop-a-Jet pilot's failure to obtain clearance for takeoff caused a near-collision with a JetBlue flight.
- The JetBlue flight had a normal approach until the Hop-a-Jet flight took off without clearance, leading to a go-around.
- The Hop-a-Jet pilot claims that he thought he had clearance to take off, possibly due to the cold temperature affecting his judgment. No damage or injuries were reported.
The US government's investigative agency, The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), has released its final findings in a recent report regarding the JetBlue landing incident in February. The report gives a detailed account of the landing and cites the failure of the Hop-a-Jet pilot to get clearance for takeoff which resulted in the near-collision with a JetBlue flight.
The NTSB reports that:
"The Hop-a-Jet flight crew taking off without a takeoff clearance which resulted in a conflict with a JetBlue flight that had been cleared to land on an intersecting runway."
Uneventful approach
JetBlue flight 206 was a scheduled service between Nashville, Tennessee (BNA) and Boston, Massachusetts (BOS). On February 28th, the day of the incident, the flight in question departed Nashville at 13:30.
After an uneventful two hour and thirty-minute flight, the Embraer E190 aircraft was cleared for the ILS approach for runway 04R but was then forced to perform a go-around because Hop-a-Jet (HPJ) flight 280 took off without clearance on intersecting runway 09 according to the NTSB. As the aircraft entered the flare after crossing the runway threshold, the first officer of the JetBlue flight, which the pilot was flying, saw a plane cross runway 04R but could not estimate how far away the aircraft was.
Runways 04R and 09 at Boston Logan International Airport are intersecting runways. According to the report, the BOS tower controller instructed the pilot of HPJ280 to line up and wait on runway 09 while the JetBlue flight was cleared to land on runway 04R. The pilot of HPJ280 read back the controller's instructions to line up (LUAW) and wait; however, they started their takeoff roll instead.
The NTSB stated that the airport surface detection equipment issued an alert, and the air traffic control gave go-around instructions to the JetBlue flight. The JetBlue flight initiated the go-around over runway 04R just before reaching the intersection between the two runways. The E190 aircraft was just 30 feet above the ground when it broke off the landing. A photo from inside the cockpit of the JetBlue flight captured just how close the "close call" actually was.
The aftermath
After the Hop-on-Jet landed at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE), the Boston tower told them they had taken off without authorization and forced the JetBlue flight, which had been cleared to land, to execute a go-around. The report said the Boston tower also told the Learjet 60 charter pilot that the JetBlue flight passed 400 above them.
In an email to the NTSB, the 63-year-old charter pilot stated that he received instructions to wait, "but in my mind, I was cleared for takeoff." He added,
"I can not understand what happened to me during the clearance, the only thing that comes to my mind is that the cold temperature in Boston affected me, I was not feeling completely well and had a stuffed nose."
The NTSB said no damage or injuries were reported in connection with the incident.
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