A Southwest Airlines flight narrowly avoided a catastrophic collision at Chicago Midway International Airport on Tuesday.
Southwest Flight 2504 was on its final approach when a private jet, identified as LXJ560, unexpectedly crossed its designated runway, forcing the commercial aircraft to abort its landing just moments before touchdown.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported that the Southwest flight, operating a Boeing 737, was descending towards Runway 31C when an unauthorized private jet, identified as a Flexjet aircraft, taxied across the same runway without clearance.
This runway incursion was the fault of the FlexJet aircraft that crossed the runway.
The FlexJet pilot had a hard time reading back the initial taxi instructions, prompting ATC to repeat the message.
The jet was told to HOLD SHORT of the active runway, which they failed to do. https://t.co/WON96P6bPD pic.twitter.com/IKXpAyhPAH
— Pat Cavlin (@pcavlin) February 25, 2025
The quick reflexes of the Southwest pilots averted a potential disaster, as they executed a go-around maneuver, ascending back into the sky to safely circle the airport before making a subsequent successful landing.
“The crew of Southwest Airlines Flight 2504 initiated a go-around when a business jet entered the runway without authorization at Chicago Midway Airport. The FAA is investigating the incident, which occurred around 8:50 a.m. local time on Tuesday, Feb. 25,” the FAA said in a statement.
WATCH:
ANOTHER NEAR MISS: Southwest Flight WN2504 had a near-miss incident at Chicago Midway today when FlexJet Flight LXJ560 crossed Runway 31C. pic.twitter.com/9Vt5qH5P4d
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) February 25, 2025
More from the Aviation Herald reported:
A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-800, registration N8517F performing flight WN-2504 from Omaha,NE to Chicago Midway,IL (USA), was in the flare to land on Midway’s runway 31C at 08:48L (14:48Z), when the crew initiated a go around due to a business jet crossing the runway. The aircraft climbed out to safety, positioned for another approach and landed safely on runway 31C about 15 minutes later.
A Bombardier Challenger 35 was taxiing for departure from runway 22L and was tracking runway 04L crossing runway 31C.
Tower was just about to instruct the Boeing to go around when the crew already reported they were going around. Later the crew queried how that happened but was instructed to contact approach.
The Bombardier was in contact with ground and had been instructed to hold short of runway 31C. Following the occurrence ground again advised their holding instructions had been to hold short of runway 31C, the crew was given a phone number for pilot deviation.
According to ADS-B data WN-2405 was in the flare only a few feet above the runway surface about 500 meters/1600 feet short of the intersection with runway 04L, when the aircraft began to climb again crossing the intersection with runway 04L at 780 feet MSL (about 150 feet AGL, transponder altitude reading 900 feet corrected for ambient pressure to 780 feet) about 7 seconds later.
“The crew followed safety procedures and the flight landed without incident,” a Southwest spokesperson told CNN. “Nothing is more important to Southwest than the safety of our customers and employees.”
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