Two airliners came within 8,000 feet (2,440 meters) of each other on a Los Angeles International Airport runway after an air traffic controller miscommunicated with the pilots, AP quoted authorities as saying. The runway incursion Wednesday night involved an American Airlines plane arriving from Mexico and a Mexicana Airlines plane preparing for takeoff. The arriving plane, an MD-80 from San Jose del Cabo, had just landed on the outer runway and was about to cross the inner runway, where an Airbus A319 was about to take off for Morelia, Mexico, according to Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor. The traffic controller told the American Airlines pilot to stop before crossing the inner runway, Gregor said. The pilot apparently misheard the direction and read back that he would go ahead and cross the runway. The controller did not catch the pilot's statement and cleared the Mexicana flight for takeoff before realizing that the American Airlines jetliner was about to roll onto the runway, the FAA said. The controller immediately told both pilots to stop. No injuries were reported. «We're logging this as a controller error and not a pilot error because the burden is on the controller to ensure that the pilot's read-back is correct,» Gregor said. The controller will undergo more training, authorities said. «The controller should have caught the pilot's incorrect statement,» National Air Traffic Controllers Association local president Michael Foote said. Foote said the controller was probably tired from working during a busy night at the airport. «This work is a constant grind, and you will see more errors cropping up when it's busy. I think he just lost focus for a little bit,» he said.
