The pilot of the Learjet that took off without clearance and almost collided with a JetBlue flight at Logan International Airport over the winter blamed Boston’s cold temps and a stuffy nose for the near catastrophic mistake.
The National Transportation Safety Board has released its final report on the investigation into the “close call” from February when the pilot of a Hop-A-Jet flight, Learjet 60, took off without clearance while a JetBlue flight was preparing to land on an intersecting runway.
As the Learjet started to takeoff without clearance, the JetBlue pilot abruptly performed a go-around to avoid a collision. The JetBlue plane, which had been cleared to land, passed about 400 feet above the Learjet.
“The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this incident to be: The Hop-a-Jet flight crew taking off without a takeoff clearance which resulted in a conflict with a JetBlue flight that had been cleared to land on an intersecting runway,” reads the NTSB final report.
The Logan tower controller had instructed the Learjet pilot to line up and wait. The Learjet’s flight crew repeated back the controller’s instructions, but they began the takeoff roll instead of waiting.
The Learjet pilot, a day after the close call, told investigators that “in his mind, they were cleared for takeoff.”
“I can not understand what happened to me during the clearance,” the pilot wrote in the incident report. “The only thing that comes to my mind is that the cold temperature in Boston affected me, I was not feeling completely well and had a stuffed nose.”
The pilot apologized in the incident report.
While cruising in the air, the Learjet flight crew was told to call a phone number from Boston upon landing.
A Logan tower controller informed them that they had taken off without authorization and caused a JetBlue plane to execute a go-around, passing about 400 feet above them.
The other Learjet pilot in the incident report wrote, “We were both convinced that we were cleared for takeoff, but that was not the case.”
JetBlue after the incident said the flight landed safely in Boston after its pilots were instructed to perform a go-around by air traffic controllers.
The airline added, “Safety is JetBlue’s first priority and our crews are trained to react to situations like this.”