LOS ANGELES (AP) - A packed WestJet airliner on a flight from Calgary was involved in a near-miss Thursday with another jet on the tarmac at Los Angeles International Airport, aviation officials said.
The close call happened at about 1 p.m. and appeared to have been the result of mistakes made by both the arriving pilot and a ground traffic controller, said Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.
Officials said the WestJet Boeing 737, carrying 136 passengers, came within 15 metres of colliding with a 150-seat Northwest Airlines Airbus A320 that was taking off.
The Northwest jet was travelling about 240 kilometres an hour when the WestJet plane approached its path. The WestJet plane managed to stop just in time to avoid a crash.
No one was hurt, authorities said. An investigation was under way.
Gregor said the arriving pilot switched radio frequencies too early after landing and was unable to receive final directions from the air traffic controller, the Los Angeles Times reported on its web site.
When the WestJet pilot notified the ground traffic controller that the plane was proceeding to its gate, the ground controller cleared him without checking first with the air traffic controller.
Aircraft arriving at the Los Angeles airport must cross the inside runway to reach their gate.
The "runway incursion" was the eighth such incident at LAX this year, matching the total for all of 2006.
WestJet officials declined to comment on the specifics of the incident, or even to say whether airline officials are concerned about the layout or signage on the runways at the busy airport.
Airline spokeswoman Natalie Green would only say that the airline was investigating.
"We've received notification from the FAA of an incident involving WestJet Flight 900 and another aircraft at LAX Aug. 16. WestJet's flight safety team is investigating the incident and we're working with the FAA on that," she said Friday from the company's headquarters in Calgary.
"Safety is one of WestJet's core values and the safety of our guests and our flight crew are always top priority."
The plane was full at the time, and the flight's final destination was Los Angeles, Green said.
The airline's flight safety team, at least a dozen people, including the airline's director of safety and the vice president of flight operations, are involved in the investigation, said airline spokesman Richard Bartrem.
He doubts passengers noticed anything.
"The reality is, the majority of the guests wouldn't have been aware that anything had happened at all. This would have been simply an aircraft stopping short of the runway and then continuing on its course," he said.
"Runway incursion's definition is whether or not you have crossed over that hold line at the side of the runway in the vicinity of another aircraft," Bartrem said.
"We're still working with them (aviation officials) to understand whether it (the plane) was even over the line," he said.
WestJet's flight safety team will be talking to the crew on board the Los Angeles-bound flight to determine exactly what happened, and will also be examining what the flight crew of the Northwest Flight tells U.S. aviation regulators, as well as communications with the air traffic controllers, Bartrem said.
He expects the investigation to take about two weeks.
So-called runway incursions are definitely an issue at busy airports, Bartrem noted.
"In the United States, runway incursions have been a priority for them (regulators) over the last few years and there has been a variety of projects undertaken to understand how to mitigate those issues, particularly in high-density airports like LAX," Bartrem said.
But investigators have yet to determine whether there was an incursion in this incident, Bartrem said.
WestJet began flying in 1996, and flies about one million passenger per day to 26 Canadian cities, 11 U.S. destinations and the Caribbean. It recently was granted permission by aviation regulators to offer regular service to Mexico.
Last year, the company's revenues totalled about $1.8 billion and the company outlined its expansion plans earlier this year, saying it plans to buy an additional 20 Boeing 737s - a deal valued at approximately $700 million.
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