Airport in Louisville, Ky., Has 2 Close Calls on Runway
Planes at the Louisville airport came close to colliding on runways twice in two weeks because of aircraft straying into areas they shouldn't have gone, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
A Chautauqua Airlines regional jet with 37 seats crossed a taxiway "hold line" Wednesday morning at Louisville International Airport, said FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen. That forced a controller to cancel the flight of a Southwest Airlines plane that had begun to roll toward takeoff at the other end of the runway.
The two planes were 5,000 to 6,000 feet apart, and the Chautauqua flight was not on the runway, The Courier-Journal of Louisville reported on its Web site.
A spokesman for Indianapolis-based Chautauqua Airlines, which operates 670 flights daily to cities in 30 states through feeder services for U.S. Airways and Delta, American and United airlines, could not be reached for comment.
In the other incident, on Sept. 20, a Mesaba Airlines flight halted its takeoff when a Kentucky Air National Guard C-130 crossed a taxiway hold line.
Both incidents are under investigation, Bergen said.
The two incidents come just weeks after the Aug. 27 crash of Comair Flight 5191 at Lexington's Blue Grass Airport, which killed 49 of 50 people on board.
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