Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-7H4 incident

On October 19, 2024, at 1450 pacific daylight time (PDT), a Diamond DA40, N895AM, and a Boeing 737-7H4, N250WN, operated as SWA1671, were involved in a runway incursion in Long Beach, CA. There were no injuries reported and none of the aircraft were damaged. N895AM was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 91 personal flight and had departed Camarillo Airport (CMA) with a destination of Long Beach Airport, Daugherty Field (LGB). SWA1671 was operated as a Title 14 CFR Part 121 passenger flight and had departed San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport (OAK) with a destination of LGB.

A review of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) air traffic control (ATC) audio recordings indicated that at 1442:36 PDT, the crew of N895AM established communication with the local control one (LC1) controller and reported inbound on the Area Navigation (RNAV) Runway 30 Zulu approach. The LC1 controller cleared N895AM to land on runway 30 and instructed the crew to hold short of runway 26 right for traffic. The crew of N895AM then requested to circle to land on runway 26 right which the LC1 controller verbally confirmed with the crew.

At 1444:38, the LC1 controller denied the circling request and again cleared N895AM to land on runway 30 and hold short of runway 26 right for traffic. The crew acknowledged with an accurate read back.

At 1446:46, the crew of SWA1671 established communication with the LC1 controller and reported inbound for landing on runway 30. At 1447:20 the LC1 controller cleared SWA1671 to land on runway 30 and provided a traffic advisory to the crew reference an uninvolved aircraft in the pattern. The crew acknowledged with an accurate readback.

At 1448:27, the LC1 controller provided a traffic advisory to the crew of SWA1671 reference a Cessna that was landing runway 26 left.

At 1449:50, the crew of N895AM advised the LC1 controller they were holding short of runway 26 right on runway 30.

At 1450:05, as SWA1671 was completing their landing roll out on runway 30, the crew of SWA1671 advised the LC1 controller that there was an aircraft on runway 30.

Following the runway incursion, both aircraft taxied to their requested parking areas without further incident.

Figure 1 shows the ground tracks of N895AM (indicated by the blue track) and SWA1671 (indicated by the yellow track) overlaid on satellite imagery in Google Earth. The illustration depicts the direction of travel for each airplane as well as their closest estimated proximity.

Figure 1. Overhead view of the flight tracks of N895AM and SWA1671 with the area of closest proximity.

Upon notification, an NTSB Air Traffic Control (ATC) working group was formed. Parties to the investigation include the FAA and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA).

Certified Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast (ADS-B) data and audio recordings were provided by the FAA and were used in constructing this preliminary report. The NTSB is currently analyzing this data.

During the week of October 28th, 2024, the ATC working group convened at Long Beach Airport Traffic Control Tower (LGB ATCT), the facility that was providing services to both airplanes at the time of the incident, and conducted interviews with the LC1 and LC2 controllers, and operations supervisor who were working at the time of the incident, as well as the NATCA Vice Facility Representative and Air Traffic Manager.

Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset