JetBlue plane scrapes tail while averting collision at Colorado airport
A JetBlue plane at Yampa Valley Regional Airport in Hayden, Colorado, scraped its tail while performing an emergency takeoff to avoid a head-on collision, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said. (Credit: NTSB via Storyful)
“I hope you don’t hit us,” the captain of Beechcraft B300 King Air said, according to a new report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released Wednesday. The comment came as the captain was landing on runway 10 at Yampa Valley Airport (HDN) in Hayden at the same time JetBlue Airbus A320 was departing from the same runway.
Flight data showed the two planes were approximately 2.2 miles apart when the incident took place, the NTSB’s final report said.
No one was injured during the incident, and the NTSB determined the tail strike as an accident.
On Jan. 22, 2022, both aircraft coordinated with the Denver air route traffic control center (ARTCC) for their respective flight plans, the report found.
King Air, mentioning both “runway 28” and “runway 10” in communications, was actually intending to land on the runway in front, and needed the runway clear to do so.
At the same time King Air was intending to land, the JetBlue aircraft resumed its procedural departure, getting approval from Denver ARTCC and also announcing on common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF) that they were leaving the ramp area and were taxiing to runway 10 for departure.
The JetBlue captain, who had over 11,000 flight hours at the time of the incident, and his co-pilot, who had 3,300 hours at the time of the incident, claim they never saw the other plane during the otherwise routine takeoff.
Upon seeing the mistake, the captain raised the nose of the aircraft more quickly than normal “due to his surprise about encountering head-on landing traffic.” The plane exceeded its pitch limit, which caused the tail strike.
Yampa Valley Regional Airport does not have flight controllers directing traffic, according to local reports. It relies on radio communication between planes and facilities in Denver to coordinate safe travel.
Read more of this story from FOX Business.
