American Airlines Flight Aborts Take Off After a Spirit Airlines Plane Gets Too Close

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is set to investigate another close call between two aircraft. This time around, it involved American Airlines Flight 457Q leaving for Chicago and Spirit Airlines Flight 1444.

The incident took place on Monday at around 12:50 PM at Boston Logan International Airport. Initially, American Airlines was given permission take off . However, an air traffic controller noticed a Spirit Airlines plane too close to the runway. This prompted the air traffic controller to cancel the take off clearance for the American Airlines plane.

Canceled Take-Off “Out of an Abundance of Caution”

The decision to cancel American Airlines Flight 457Q’s take off was made “out of an abundance of caution.”

Cosmo Rowell, a passenger on board the American Airlines flight described the experience as “terrifying.” Rowell revealed that “As soon as you start to take off, you get these G-forces where you pitted in the back of your seat and you start to get used to that and then they just hit the brakes.”

An American Airlines spokesperson said that the flight returned to the gate after the take off was canceled. The American Airlines spokesperson said that “The safety of our customers and team members is our top priority and we apologize for the delay in our customer’s travel plans.” Spirit Airlines, on the other hand, announced in a statement that it will cooperate with the FAA’s investigation of the incident. The American Airlines flight later left Boston at 2:38 PM.

This wasn’t the first safety-related incident that happened at the airport in recent months. In March, two similar situations occurred at Logan. One involved a JetBlue flight that aborted landing because of a private plane on the runway. And in that same month, two United Airlines aircraft clipped wings with one another.

In April, the FAA appointed a safety team in charge of finding ways to make the country’s air traffic system safer and more reliable.