Investigators said Wednesday that air traffic controllers cleared an Alaska Airlines plane to take off from Nashville last month after notifying the pilots of a flight Southwest Airlines Jet crossing the same runway.
The pilots of the Alaska plane aborted takeoff from Nashville International Airport on Sept. 12 because they applied the brakes so hard that the tires deflated, as they are supposed to do when they get too hot.
The National Transportation Safety Board provided a timeline for the incident as part of a brief preliminary report. The agency said it is continuing to investigate the incident. The board usually indicates a probable cause of accidents and bottlenecks after a detailed examination.
There were 176 passengers and crew members on the Alaska jet and 141 on the Southwest plane. According to the NTSB, no injuries were reported.
The agency said it listened to conversations between pilots and air traffic controllers and retrieved flight data recorders from both planes. Investigators obtained the Alaska Airlines plane’s cockpit voice recorder, but the Southwest plane’s recorder was overwritten after the plane took off.
The NTSB said an air traffic controller instructed the Alaska crew to line up on runway 13 and wait for clearance to take off. About a minute later, an air traffic controller told Southwest pilots to cross Runway 13 on the way to another runway, and 15 seconds later, an air traffic controller cleared the Alaska plane for takeoff.
The Alaska plane took off on the runway before the pilots aborted takeoff. According to the NTSB, the fuse plugs on all four main landing gear tires were depleted.