Citation Overflies 737 On Runway At San Diego

The FAA is investigating a runway incursion at San Diego Airport involving a Citation that overflew a Southwest aircraft just after noon on Friday. The FAA says the Citation was cleared to land after the 737 had moved onto the runway to line up and wait. Reuters said the Citation cleared the Southwest plane by about 100 feet, surface detection equipment alerted the tower and the Citation was ordered to go around. The Southwest flight then took off for San Jose.

“Our aircraft departed without event and the flight operated normally, with a safe landing in San Jose as scheduled,” the airline said. The incident bears some similarity to an incident in Austin in February in which a FedEx 767 overflew a Southwest flight that was on the roll on the runway. Both aircraft had been cleared in that incident, too. Weather was at minimums in fog in the Austin incident, but the weather in San Diego was benign at the time of the incident.