Investigators faulted the actions of the crew aboard the LearJet, operated by Hop-A-Jet, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based private charter company, on Feb. 27. The report included a photo that showed the LearJet crossing the intersection in front of JetBlue flight 206 as it was preparing to land.
A photo from inside the cockpit of JetBlue Flight 206 captured just how chillingly close the “close call” actually was, according to a final report on investigation released Thursday.
A private jet took off without permission from Logan International Airport in February before nearly colliding with a JetBlue plane that was trying to land, the National Transportation Safety Board said.
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“The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this incident to be: The Hop-a-Jet flight crew taking off without a takeoff clearance which resulted in a conflict with a JetBlue flight that had been cleared to land on an intersecting runway,” the final report concluded.
The JetBlue pilot was forced to take evasive action and perform “a climb-out maneuver” to avoid a potentially devastating collision, officials said.
The closest proximity between the two planes occurred when the JetBlue plane was 30 feet above ground and approaching the intersecting runway, the 8-page report said.
The report did not make any disciplinary recommendations. The JetBlue plane eventually landed safely, the airline said at the time.
The Hop-A-Jet crew apparently knew nothing of the close call until they landed at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport where they were notified that “they had taken off without authorization and caused an airplane that had been cleared to land on runway 04 to execute a go-around, passing about 400′ above them,” the report said.
According to the report, air traffic controllers in Boston had instructed the pilot of the LearJet to line up and wait on Runway 9 while JetBlue’s Embraer 190 landed on an intersecting runway.
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The LearJet’s flight crew read back the controller’s instructions, “however, they began the takeoff-roll instead,” the report said.
The 63-year-old captain of the LearJet later told investigators that “he probably responded to the clearance, but in his mind, they were cleared for takeoff.”
The captain also told the board, “I cannot understand what happened to me during the clearance, the only thing that comes to my mind is that the cold temperature in Boston affected me, I was not feeling completely well and had a stuffed nose. My apologies.”
Hop-A-Jet could not immediately be reached for comment by the Globe Thursday night.
A man who answered the phone at Hop-A-Jet headquarters said the company had no comment about the incident or the report, the Associated Press reported.
The incident was one of two close calls at Logan in just one week. On March 6, two United airplanes bumped into each other’s wings, the Globe reported.
The two incidents were among several early this year that raised alarms about aviation safety in the United States despite the lack of a fatal crash involving a U.S. airline since 2009.
The close calls led the Federal Aviation Administration to convene a “safety summit” in March to brainstorm ways to prevent planes from coming too close together.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
Tonya Alanez can be reached at tonya.alanez@globe.com. Follow her @talanez.