Fourth Runway Incursion in Just Over a Year

A Delta Air Lines flight had to pull up while on final approach to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport Wednesday for a go-around, to avoid colliding with a United Airlines flight that ended up on the same runway.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating how United Flight 1544 missed a turn and proceeded onto the same runway Delta Flight 1489 was about to land on, said FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen.

"The controllers do an outstanding job, but they were particularly outstanding yesterday (Wednesday)," Bergen said.

The controllers had alerted the Delta crew and instructed them to pull up to avoid the United flight, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Go-arounds are common, Bergen said, but called Wednesday's incident a rare scenario.

This is the fourth runway incursion FLL has had since June 1, 2006. Two of those were said to be pilot error and the other was ruled a control error; none involved collisions.

The United flight reached its destination without incident at Dulles International Airport in Washington with 133 passengers on board, said Megan McCarthy, spokeswoman for UAL Corp.'s United Airlines.

The Delta flight came in from Atlanta with 167 passengers on board, said Betsy Talton, a spokeswoman for Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines Inc.

Both airline spokespersons declined further comment according to the Sentinel.

FMI: www.broward.org/airport, www.faa.gov