‘Turn around. Turn around. Turn around’: Pilots who came within 50 metres of crashing tell how they skilfully avoided disaster

() – The weather couldn’t be worse, in terms of dense fog. Pilots of a FedEx cargo plane couldn’t see the runway or the airfield at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas. But they are trained for such “Category III” approaches — an automated approach when pilots don’t need to see to land, as long as everything on the aircraft is working properly. And it was.

However, human error in the air traffic control tower and a lack of critical safety technology brought the plane within about 150 feet (nearly 50 meters) of a Southwest Airlines plane carrying 128 people, according to a report from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on the incident on February 4, 2023.

“I saw the silhouette of the other plane, that’s when I called out… ‘Go around. Go around. Go around,’” First Officer Robert Bradeen told ’s Pete Muntean in the first television interview about the incident.

“It was definitely a shocking moment. You don’t expect to see a plane that close. And you hope you never see them that close,” Bradeen said.

Captain Hugo Carvajal initiated the turn procedure and his plane reached a safe place.

“I knew it was pretty close because I recognized Rob’s tone of voice when he said, ‘turn around,’” Carvajal told . “And then the focus at that point is just getting away from the ground, getting away from the plane.”

The Austin incident is now known as the closest “near miss” during a time when they continued to occur at airports from coast to coast. The National Transportation Safety Board has investigated more than a dozen similar cases since the beginning of last year.

On Thursday, another near miss was added to the list when an Alaska Airlines plane and a Southwest Airlines plane collided Nearly collided in Nashville.

In some cases, hero pilots like Bradeen and Carvajal have prevented collision courses from turning deadly. On Thursday, the pair received their union’s Aviation Superiority Award for the teamwork and vigilance that prevented what would have been the worst air disaster in decades.

The duo credit their quick response to training and experience. Carvajal has been with FedEx for 22 years; Bradeen has been flying for the company for about five and a half years.

The flight was business as usual, until it wasn’t. The two briefed the approach before boarding the plane in Memphis and debriefed it in flight. And they have repeatedly trained for the Category III approach.

“It was pretty routine right up until the end,” Bradeen said.

But about three miles from landing, they became uneasy when an air traffic controller cleared the Southwest flight in front of them for takeoff.

“We heard Southwest check in and then the tower cleared them, which surprised us both. We looked at each other and expressed a little skepticism about it. And Hugo asked me to confirm that we were still cleared to land, which I did,” Bradeen said.

The Southwest Boeing 737 sat in the center of the runway for 19 seconds, according to the NTSB report, as the FedEx Boeing 767 headed toward it in fog. The pilots’ awareness was heightened, but Bradeen said he didn’t realize a collision was imminent until he was about 100 to 150 feet away.

“I was looking outside because we were concerned. So I was looking between the internal monitoring systems and over the glare shield, trying to see the runway and our landing zone. And I saw a position light on the silhouette of the Southwest airplane right over the closing glare shield.”

And he asked to go around. Looking outside the aircraft during such an approach is not typical, Bradeen said, but because he was unsure of the Southwest plane’s location, he was looking between the interior and exterior systems.

“And luckily I was able to look at the right time and see it.”

Good luck, more years of experience.

“This could have been a tragedy. If there had not been two well-trained and qualified pilots on the flight deck that day, we certainly might be telling a very different story right now,” said Capt. Jason Ambrosi, president of the Air Line Pilots Association.

The NTSB issued Seven recommendations in June based on the Austin incident, including installing technology at all commercial airports to detect the movement of aircraft and vehicles on the ground. The Federal Aviation Administration has said it would install a surface detection system at some airports by the end of 2025. Austin would be among those airports.

Carvajal said that “getting the dollars to support this type of equipment at each airfield” is important. He stressed that having two pilots in each cockpit is essential for safety.

“This incident could have been catastrophic if not for the heroic actions of the FedEx crew,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said during a hearing earlier this month. She thanked the pilots for saving lives.

But do they see themselves as heroes?

“It depends on your perspective,” Bradeen said. “For us, we did our job. It’s what we’re trained to do.”