A Delta Air Lines jet and an American Airlines plane came within approximately 300 feet (90 metres) of each other at Boston Logan International Airport on Saturday, forcing the Delta aircraft to abort its landing in what aviation experts are calling a significant safety incident. The Federal Aviation Administration has confirmed it is investigating the close call.
The Delta flight, arriving from Dallas with 129 passengers and six crew members on board, was approaching the runway when an American Airlines plane was departing from an intersecting runway. The crew of Delta flight 2351 coordinated with air traffic control to execute a go-around — a standard procedure in which a landing is aborted and the aircraft climbs back to a safe altitude before attempting another approach. The plane ultimately landed safely and passengers disembarked normally, according to a Delta spokesperson.
The 300-foot distance estimate was calculated by Todd Curtis, a former safety engineer at Boeing who now co-produces a podcast on flight safety, using Flightradar24, a publicly available flight-tracking website. Curtis described the incident as particularly concerning because it involved two experienced, professional airline crews rather than, for example, a mix of commercial and private aircraft. While go-arounds are considered routine and safe procedures that can be initiated either by pilots or air traffic controllers, the proximity between the two jets raises serious questions about runway management and coordination at one of the United States' busiest airports.
The incident comes at a moment of heightened scrutiny over aviation safety in the United States. On Tuesday, the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Aviation, Space, and Innovation is scheduled to hold a hearing on Capitol Hill specifically addressing near-misses and runway incursions at American airports, with the aim of identifying ways to strengthen safety across the national airspace system.
The Boston incident underscores growing concerns about the frequency of close calls at US airports. Federal aviation officials have been monitoring runway incursion risks for some time, and Saturday's episode is likely to add urgency to Tuesday's congressional hearing. For the travelling public, incidents like this serve as a reminder that aviation safety, while generally robust, depends on precise coordination between pilots, air traffic controllers, and airport infrastructure — and that even small breakdowns in that chain can have serious consequences.