Two packed Delta Air Lines planes were involved in an alarming mid-air near-miss at Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport (ATL) late on Monday evening after air traffic control cleared one plane to take off in the path of another plane that was performing a so-called ‘go around’ after abandoning their landing attempt because another plane was still on the runway.
The incident involved two Delta Air Lines flights:
- Delta flight DL-1568 from Pittsburgh to Atlanta Hartsfield, which was operated by a Boeing 737-900
- Delta flight DL-2472 from Atlanta Hartsfield to Rochester, New York, which was operated by an Airbus A321
At the time of the incident, which was around 11 pm on July 27, Atlanta Hartsfield was dealing with a backlog of flights due to bad summer weather, which had caused delays and diversions.
In fact, Delta flight 1568 had been due to land at ATL at 8 pm, but had initially diverted to nearby Chattanooga to wait out a storm before continuing the rest of the flight to Atlanta.
As a result, the airspace around Atlanta was pretty busy, and air traffic controllers were working at full capacity to clear the backlog.
At that time, departures and arrivals were taking place on two parallel runways to the north of the main terminal bulding. Departures were taking place on the runway closest to the terminals, known as Runway 26L, while arrivals were taking place on Runway 26R.
Delta flight 1568 had been given permission to land on Runway 26R, while at around the same time, Delta flight 2472 was being given clearance to take off from Runway 26L.
While on final approach to land, however, the pilots of flight 1568 spotted a Frontier aircraft that had landed ahead of them, still on the runway after taking longer than expected to exit onto an adjacent taxiway.
The pilots of flight 1568 asked air traffic control if “there was something on the runway.” The controller said the Frontier plane was just clearing onto the taxiway, but the crew of flight 1568 decided to perform a ‘go around,’ just to be safe.
As they did this, the airport tower directed the pilots of flight 2472 to turn right and climb to 4,000 feet. The right turn meant that flight 2472 was now heading in the direction of flight 1568, which had also been directed to climb to 4,000 feet.
At this moment, the pilots of flight 2472 tell the tower that they are “responding RA.” This means they were responding to a ‘Resolution Advisory,’ which is a cockpit alarm from the onboard Traffic Collision Avoidance System, or TCAS for short.
TCAS works by monitoring nearby transponders from other aircraft and acts as a last line of defense to prevent a mid-air collision. The TCAS system provides two levels of alert: Traffic Advisories and Resolution Advisories.
A Resolution Advisory is the most serious type of alert and commands the pilots to take immediate action, sounding an alarm in the cockpit and giving specific instructions to prevent a collision.
According to data supplied by Flight Radar 24, the aircraft came within 1,800 feet of each other.
A spokesperson for Delta Air Lines insisted that safety was never compromised, saying in a statement: “During the go-around, the flight crew maneuvered in accordance with established procedures while maintaining safe operations.”
The statement added: “Our crews train extensively to handle uncommon scenarios like this.”
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says it will investigate the incident.
