The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating an incident Sunday morning at Denver International Airport in which air-traffic controllers cleared a DIA ground vehicle for a runway and then cleared a Northwest Airlines jet to take off on the same runway.
A collision-warning system sounded in the tower, but Northwest Flight 1294, an Airbus A319, already had lifted off the runway, according to officials familiar with the incident, which occurred about 5:30 a.m. The FAA said the Northwest jet lifted off near the midpoint of the 12,000-foot-long runway when the ground vehicle was at the far end of the runway.
The closest proximity the plane had to the vehicle was about 6,000 horizontal feet and an unknown number of vertical feet, the agency said. Tower procedures require that controllers verify ground vehicles are clear of a runway before they give pilots permission for takeoff.
Jeff Leib, The Denver Post
