Regional Jet Aborts Landing To Avoid Departing Flight At Burbank

The NTSB and FAA are investigating yet another incursion in which the crew of an inbound aircraft had to abort a landing because there was an aircraft departing on the same runway. The Aviation Safety Network (ASN) is reporting a Skywest Airlines E175 (operating as United Express 5326) was cleared to take off from Runway 33 at Hollywood Burbank Airport in California while a Mesa Airlines CRJ-900 (American 5826) was on short final for the same runway. "The CRJ-900 discontinued the approach and initiate[d] a climb out. At the same time the ERJ-175 continued with its departure, which prompted a TCAS alert on the CRJ-900," the ASN report says. The alert was a resolution advisory (RA). The incident occurred Feb. 22 just before 7 p.m. local time. The ATC exchange begins at 24 minutes in this LiveATC recording.

The post says the controller ordered the CRJ-900 crew to make a left turn and it eventually returned to Burbank for an uneventful landing. The E175 continued to San Francisco. NBC is reporting the landing aircraft was 1.3 miles from the threshold when the E175 began its roll. It's not clear how close they came to one another. It's at least the fourth close call involving airliners in the last few months and similar to one earlier this month in which a Southwest 737 taking off from Austin was overflown by a FedEx 767 that had been cleared to land on the same runway in heavy fog. Weather does not appear to have been a factor in the Burbank incident. The mishap came after FAA Acting Administrator issued a call to action on safety in response to the previous three incursions and a fourth incident in which a Boeing 777 lost almost 2,000 feet shortly after taking off from a Hawaiian airport.