Southwest and FedEx planes nearly collide at Austin airport 

A Southwest Airlines and a FedEx cargo plane almost collided with each other at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport this weekend, authorities said on Monday. 

Air traffic control cleared FedEx flight 1432 coming from Memphis to land on the same runway where Southwest Airlines flight 708 with 128 passengers was getting ready to take off. The FedEx plane aborted the landing. 

The two planes “came within very close proximity of each other and we believe it’s less than 100 feet,” said the chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, Jennifer Homendy, adding that the agency opened an investigation into the near miss.  

“We’re really digging into the communications between [air traffic control], Southwest, FedEx — especially in relation to weather issues,” she said, claiming that a number of factors could have contributed to the near miss. 

Audio between the air traffic control and the pilots of the FedEx and Southwest flights seems to indicate that the controllers did not realize that the Southwest flight was still moving when they allowed the cargo plane to land. 

“Southwest, abort. FedEx is on the go,” the unidentified controller tells the FedEx pilot before the plane aborted its landing, flying over Southwest airlines airplane at an altitude of 75 feet. 

A similar incident took place in January when an American Airlines flight crossed onto the runway as a Delta Airlines flight was about to take off. Air traffic controllers noticed the potential collision and alerted both flights. The Delta pilots reacted by slamming the brakes to avoid the tragedy, stopping only 1,000 feet away from the American Airlines flight.