A report from US officials has found that two planes came within a kilometre of each other at a Florida airport after air traffic control gave an American Airlines jet permission to land on the same runway that an Air Canada Rouge jet was about to take off from. The incident happened just before 9 p.m. on Feb. 16 at Sarasota Bradenton International Airport in the Tampa Bay area. In a preliminary report published on Thursday, the US National Transportation Safety Board said air traffic control had cleared the American Airlines jet from Charlotte, N.C. to land on Runway 14. However, air traffic control had also cleared an Air Canada Rouge plane heading to Toronto for takeoff on the same runway, despite the fact that the American Airlines jet was on a final approach towards the runway, less than 5.5 kilometres away. When the American Airlines jet was 2.8 kilometres away, the controller confirmed that the Air Canada Rouge plane was to takeoff from the runway. About 53 seconds later, the American Airlines pilots aborted the landing, known in aviation as a “go-around”. Since January, the NTSB has been investigating six runway incursions.
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