Chartered Business Jet Lined Up To Land On An Occupied Taxiway

The NTSB has issued a preliminary report for its ongoing investigation of a near miss at Philadelphia International Airport.

The Aug. 10, 2018, incident involved a Gulfstream IV airplane operated by Pegasus Elite Aviation as PEGJET flight 19, a Title 14, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 135, charter flight, with four passengers and three crewmembers aboard. There were no injuries and the airplane was not damaged.

PEGJET flight 19 was on a visual approach and cleared to land on runway 35 at about 8:50 p.m. on the incident date. During the approach the airplane aligned instead with taxiway E and when about one-tenth of a mile from the end of the taxiway, the pilot initiated a go-around.

On taxiway E were four air carrier passenger jets. Preliminary estimates indicate PEGJET flight 19 overflew the first jet (an Embraer ERJ-145) by about 200 feet and then overflew an Embraer ERJ-175, a Canadair CRJ-700 and another Embraer ERJ-145.

The FAA reported the incident to the NTSB Aug. 11, and the NTSB initiated its investigation the same day. The cockpit voice recorder had already been overwritten. The flight data recorder was pulled from the airplane and sent to the NTSB laboratory for download and analysis.

NTSB preliminary reports do not provide probable cause and do not contain any analysis or findings, rather they only detail facts the agency has been able to verify at this point of the investigation. Information in preliminary reports is subject to change as more information becomes available throughout the course of the investigation. As such, no conclusions about the cause of the incident should be drawn from the information in the preliminary report.

The NTSB is currently also investigating a near miss at San Francisco Airport and that investigation is the subject of a NTSB meeting scheduled for Sept. 25, 2018. The agency is also investigating a Dec. 29, 2017, taxiway landing at Pullman, Washington.

(Source: NTSB news release)

FMI: www.ntsb.gov