An American Airlines flight trying to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Tuesday had to do a go-around maneuver and abort its first landing.

Later on Tuesday, Southwest Airlines Flight 2504 from Eppley Airfield in Omaha, Nebraska, to Chicago Midway International Airport performed a similar go-around maneuver after a business jet entered the runway without permission, the Federal Aviation Administration said on its website.

The Reagan National incident came at around 8:20 a.m., with American Flight 2246 from Boston’s Logan International Airport told to do the maneuver by air traffic control, the FAA said.

The go-around maneuver, which involves stopping the plane’s approach, regaining altitude and circling back to make another approach and landing, was requested so that another flight would have more time to take off.

Flight 2246 got as low as 500 feet before performing the go-around maneuver, according to FlightAware. It ended up landing by 8:31 a.m. and arriving at its gate by 8:38 a.m.

American Airlines stressed that the maneuver was not done to avoid a collision.

“Flight 2246 landed safely and normally …  American has a no fault go-around policy as a go-around is not an abnormal flight maneuver and can occur nearly every day in the National Airspace System,” American said in a statement. “Any assertion that fligh’s canceled approach was more than that is inaccurate.”

The incident comes a month after the Jan. 29 collision above the Potomac River between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional flight killed all 67 people aboard both aircraft. The plane was on its way to land at Reagan National.

In Chicago, the Southwest jet landed without further incident, the airline told AP. The plane reached the tarmac about 20 minutes late at 9:02 a.m., according to FlightAware.

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.