NTSB chairwoman points finger at private jet crew for near collision at Midway Airport

CHICAGO (WGN) — The chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board on Wednesday pointed the blame of Tuesday’s near-collision at Midway International Airport at the operator of the private jet.

Video recorded by StreamTimeLive shows Southwest 2504 from Omaha abort its landing at Midway shortly before 9 a.m. when a private, Bombardier Challenger 350 aircraft crossed its path.

“It appears this was a failure of the flight crew from Flexjet to listen and abide by the instructions of air traffic control,” NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said on Wednesday morning’s edition of ‘Fox & Friends’ on the Fox News Channel. “They were supposed to line up and wait and hold short of runway 31C, which Southwest was landing on, and they failed to do so.”

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She added that her agency would collect a recording of the air traffic control communications at the time of the incident, and she said NTSB has requested the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder from the Flexjet.

No one was injured in Tuesday’s incident, and passengers on the Southwest flight who spoke with WGN said they were unaware of the potential disaster that was averted.

“We didn’t even realize we were head on and of course, none of us could see anything out the window,” said passenger Emily Novak. “Unlike the other plane, who was watching from their windows, us coming straight at them.”

Novak praised their pilot for staying calm and carrying out a last second, potentially life-saving maneuver.

In addition to the NTSB, the Federal Aviation Administration will also investigate the incident.

Tuesday’s near-miss followed a string of recent aviation incidents, including a deadly midair collision over the Potomac River, the Philadelphia Medevac (short for medical evacuation) crash, a fatal aircraft collision near the Marana Regional Airport in Arizona, and another incident in Alaska earlier this month that killed 10 people.