A Delta jet that aborted a landing at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport got so close to a plane taking off that anti-collision alarms sounded in both aircraft, according to air traffic control audio of the incident. Delta flight 1568, flying from Pittsburgh, was coming in for a landing in Atlanta late Monday evening after bad weather forced the plane to divert to Chattanooga, Tennessee, for a couple of hours. “Somebody on the runway?” the pilot asked the tower, according to a recording of air traffic control audio from ATC.net. “He’s exiting now,” the tower responded. But the pilot, apparently concerned the other plane would not get out of the way in time, radioed he was “going around” and would circle the airport for another attempt. Meanwhile, Delta flight 2472 had just taken off from a parallel runway and the controller directed its pilots to turn right and climb to 4,000 feet, putting it directly in the path of the other plane. The pilot of Delta 1568 repeated “Delta 1568, going around” on the radio and was also directed to turn right and climb to 4,000 feet. Almost immediately anti-collision alarms, called resolution advisories, sounded in the cockpits of both planes warning the pilots to take evasive action. The controller directed both aircraft away from each other. At their closest point the planes were separated by about 1,800 feet and about 600 feet in altitude, according to flight tracking data from Flightradar24. “During the go-around, the flight crew maneuvered in accordance with established procedures while maintaining safe operations,” Delta Air Lines said in a statement. “Our crews train extensively to handle uncommon scenarios like this.” In a statement, the Federal Aviation Administration said it will investigate the incident. Aaron Cooper, CNN
