A Bombardier Learjet 60 taking off Monday night from Boston Logan International Airport (KBOS) had what the FAA said was a “close call” with a JetBlue Embraer E190 preparing to land. The FAA is investigating the incident and noted, “This is the fifth near-collision involving an airliner on a runway this year.”
“According to a preliminary review, the pilot of the Learjet 60 took off without clearance while the EMB-190 was preparing to land on an intersecting runway,” the FAA said in a statement. The agency added that the Learjet was operated by Florida-based charter provider Hop-A-Jet. Hop-A-Jet has yet to respond to AIN’s inquiries seeking comment.
Logan Tower “instructed the pilot of the Learjet to line up and wait on Runway 9 while the JetBlue aircraft landed on Runway 4R, which intersects Runway 9,” the FAA said. “The Learjet pilot read back the instructions clearly, but began a takeoff roll instead.” ATC instructed the JetBlue pilot to go around as the Learjet crossed the intersection. The FAA is investigating how close the two aircraft came to each other.
The event at Logan is the latest such incident involving airliners in the past few months, including at New York John F. Kennedy Airport in January; Austin, Texas, and Burbank, California in February; and Hawaii in December.