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
A Southwest Airlines jet aborted a landing at Chicago's Midway Airport after an "unauthorized" FlexJet business jet taxied across an active runway.
Video of the incident involving Southwest Flight 2504 and the FlexJet private jet was posted on X via Airport Webcams. The video shows the pilots of the 737-800 in the flare phase of the landing when the FlexJet private jet cuts across the runway. The 737 pilots acted quickly and aborted the landing with full thrust in a nose-up attitude for a straight-out departure.
The Federal Aviation Administration released a statement indicating the incident occurred around 0830 local time when a business jet "entered the runway without authorization."
More color on what went wrong via local media NBC Chicago:
Audio captured from live air traffic control communications, or LiveATC indicated Southwest Airlines Flight 2504 was cleared to land on Runway 31C by local controllers, with the jet, FlexJet 560 taxing for departure and communicating with ground control at a different frequency.
In the audio, the jet was instructed to cross runway 31L, but stopped short of runway 31C to allow the Southwest Flight to land. Some confusion about the clearance occurs, with the controlling then repeating the instruction.
Southwest Airlines can then be heard initiating the go-around, as well as later asking "how'd that happen?"
A spokesperson from Flexjet said it was aware of the incident and was "working to gather more information" on the situation.
While Democrats may attempt to blame President Trump for the Midway Airport incident, it's worth remembering that Delta Air Lines CEO told CBS last week that Trump's cuts at the FAA were in "non-critical safety functions" (such as DEI).
Pilots of the FlexJet plane likely received a phone call from the FAA after the incident. Someone is getting a ding on their record...