“Stop, Stop, Stop”: In Viral Video, 2 Planes’ Narrow Escape At US Airport

Just days after the deadly plane crash in South Korea, a near-miss at Los Angeles International Airport left people in shock. Footage captured the tense moment a Delta Airlines flight nearly collided with a plane carrying the Gonzaga University basketball team on Friday afternoon.

Around 4:30 pm local time, when Gonzaga’s chartered Key Lime Air Flight 563 was rolling across the runway, air traffic controllers urgently screamed, “Stop, stop, stop!” as heard in a video uploaded online. 

The aircraft, which had just landed from Washington ahead of the team’s game against UCLA, halted just in time as Delta Flight 471, an Airbus A321 bound for Atlanta, sped toward takeoff.

The alarming footage shows the private jet coming to a sudden stop mere seconds before the Delta flight soared into the sky. An aviation spotter, who witnessed the near-miss, noted, “In all my years of watching planes, I’ve never heard an air traffic controller shout ‘Stop, stop, stop’ like that.”

🚨 “STOP STOP STOP!” LAX ATC urgently called out to a Key Lime Air jet as a Delta jet took off from runway 24L. Was this a runway incursion? All of it captured live during Friday’s Airline Videos Live broadcast. pic.twitter.com/5vwQfVzggQ

— AIRLINE VIDEOS (@airlinevideos) December 28, 2024

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has launched an investigation into the incident, with authorities confirming that air traffic controllers had instructed the Gonzaga plane to hold short of the runway. As the private jet rolled forward, controllers quickly ordered the pilot to halt, just as Delta’s flight approached.

“When the Embraer E135 jet proceeded to cross the hold bars, air traffic controllers told the pilots to stop,” an FAA spokesperson explained to NBC News. “The jet never crossed the runway edge line.” “Air traffic controllers directed Key Lime Air Flight 563 to hold short of crossing a runway at Los Angeles International Airport because a second aircraft was taking off from the runway at the time,” the spokesperson said.

Gonzaga University later confirmed the plane was a chartered Embraer ERJ-135. Despite the close call, Delta’s flight, which had no delays, proceeded on schedule. 

This near-miss follows the deadly crash of a Jeju Air flight in South Korea on Sunday, which killed 179 people, and a crash in Kazakhstan that claimed 38 lives.