Citation Overflies 737 On Runway At San Diego

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Key Takeaways:

  • The FAA is investigating a runway incursion at San Diego Airport involving a Citation jet overflying a Southwest 737.
  • The Citation was cleared to land and passed approximately 100 feet above the Southwest plane, which was cleared to line up and wait on the runway, leading to a go-around order for the Citation.
  • The Southwest flight subsequently departed safely, and the incident bears similarities to a previous runway incursion in Austin earlier this year.
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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.

Russ Niles

Russ Niles is Editor-in-Chief of AVweb. He has been a pilot for 30 years and joined AVweb 22 years ago. He and his wife Marni live in southern British Columbia where they also operate a small winery.
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