This time, at Charleston, South Carolina airport, there was insufficient separation between an aircraft taking off and an aircraft overtaking during landing, and this is not the first case of its kind in the United States in recent times.
On April 30, the crew of the JetBlue Airbus A220-300 flying from Charleston to Boston received clearance to take off from the airport’s runway 21, while the pilots of the incoming American Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 approached the same runway.
The landing craft was about 2 nautical miles (2.7 km) from the runway threshold when Jetblue’s A220 took off. The crew of the American 737 decided to fly at 700 feet (213 m) as the JetBlue was still on the runway.
The 737 MAX turned right and began a procedural climb to 3,000 feet (914 meters) per AVHerald according to.
Meanwhile, the A220 had also taken off and started to climb, and at the same time the two planes had been moving in a different direction for a short time, but at the same altitude, the horizontal distance between them reduced to only 0.4 nautical miles (740 metres).
The American flight landed safely after re-approach, and JetBlue continued its flight to Boston.
In the past period, there have been many occasions in American airports where planes or landing and taking off trajectories crossed each other due to the error of the pilots or controllers, or the lack of the required separation between them.
In January, a Delta Boeing 737 had to abort its takeoff at New York JFK Airport because an American Boeing 777 deviated from the approved taxiway and crossed the active runway in front of the plane’s takeoff.
And in February, two planes came dangerously close to Austin Airport. Then, the distance between a FedEx Boeing 767 and a Southwest Boeing 737 landing from the same runway dropped below the minimum required when the freighter flew over the passenger plane. And in one instance in March, a Jetblue Embraer E190 had to abort its approach to Boston after a Learjet business jet took off from the runway across its runway without permission.
The relevant authorities have begun investigating the accidents, and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has also begun reviewing the security architecture of the US aviation system due to the series of accidents.
