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A passenger aboard an American Airlines flight that was forced to abruptly cancel its takeoff recalled the frightening moment the plane screeched to a halt to avoid colliding with another aircraft at Boston’s Logan Airport.
“It’s terrifying, it’s terrifying,” passenger Cosmo Rowell, who was on the Monday flight bound for Chicago, told Boston 25.
Rowell said everything appeared normal just as Flight 1457 was taking off at 1 p.m. — but things suddenly took a turn.
“As soon as you start to take off, you get these G-forces where you pitted in the back of your seat and you start to get used to that and then they just hit the brakes,” said Rowell.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the plane was instructed to make the sudden stop “out of an abundance of caution” because a Spirit Airlines plane was too close to the runway.
Roswell said the jolt from the pilot hitting the brakes left him and his fellow passengers uneasy, with their flight delayed for about two and a half hours.
“There was definitely anxiety in the air because, you know, we don’t know what we’re going to run into, if that was what was going to happen,” Rowell told WCVB. “Everyone was definitely scared.”
American Airlines said in a statement: “The safety of our customers and team members is our top priority and we apologize for the delay in our customers’ travel plans.”
The FAA is investigating the “close call” incident.
This isn’t the first time the FAA has had to open such an investigation at Logan Airport, with a similar incident occurring earlier this year.
On February 27, a JetBlue pilot nearly hit a private charter jet on the runway whose pilot appeared to have misunderstood instructions from air traffic control and attempted to take off.
Fortunately, the FAA said the “pilot of the JetBlue aircraft took evasive action and initiated a climb-out as the Learjet crossed the intersection.”
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