Nashville ATC asked 2 planes to cross each other on same runway: NTSB

WASHINGTON, D.C.: The National Transportation Safety Board said that a near collision between two aircraft was narrowly averted at Nashville airport last month after air traffic controllers cleared an Alaska Airlines jet to take off after telling pilots of a Southwest Airlines jet to cross the same runway.

Pilots of the Alaska Airlines plane aborted their September 12 take-off 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 NTSB gave a timeline of the incident as part of a brief preliminary report while stating that it continues to investigate the incident. The board usually issues a probable cause for accidents and close calls after lengthy reviews.

No injuries were reported among the 176 passengers and crew members on the Alaska jet and 141 on the Southwest plane.

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

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

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