An Air France near miss at LAX is under scrutiny after one of the airline's planes turned the wrong way right after takeoff and ended up less than a mile from an American Airlines flight. It happened just after midnight on Saturday, when Air France flight 28, an Airbus A350 headed to Papeete in Tahiti, and American Airlines flight 1660, an Airbus A321 headed to Dallas-Fort Worth, took off from parallel runways about a minute apart.
Both flights landed safely and no one was hurt. But air traffic control audio shows how quickly the controller had to step in, ordering the Air France crew to turn "immediately" and warning the American pilots about traffic "less than a mile" ahead.
What Happened
LAX regularly sends planes off its parallel runways at nearly the same time, which only works if every plane follows its assigned departure route exactly. Air France 28 took off from runway 24L and was cleared to climb on its published departure route. Instead, it turned left, toward the path of the American flight climbing out from runway 25R next door.
The controller told the Air France crew to fly a heading of 270 "immediately," told the American pilots to hold at 2,000 feet and then asked Air France why it had turned. "You were instructed to climb via SID, not turn to a heading," the controller said, using the term for a standard departure route. The Air France pilot answered "standby" and didn't explain. The crew was later given a phone number to call about a possible pilot deviation, which is how the FAA starts looking into whether a pilot broke a rule.
How close the two planes got depends on whose tracking data you use. Flightradar24 put them about 4,200 feet apart horizontally and 1,000 feet apart vertically at their closest. Another tracking service, Wingbits, reported they came within about three-quarters of a mile horizontally, with roughly 300 feet of vertical separation at one point. Either way, it was much closer than controllers want planes to get this soon after takeoff.
Why It Keeps Happening at LAX
This isn't the first time. Reports say a TAP Air Portugal A330neo made a similar left turn off the same runway a few weeks ago, and another Air France plane did almost the same thing a couple of months before that. One wrong turn can be a one-off mistake. A pattern on the same runway usually points investigators toward something more specific, like how the departure route is written, how it's loaded into the plane's flight computer or how the clearance is worded on the radio.
It's not known yet why the Air France crew turned, and it would be unfair to guess. The FAA is expected to look at the flight data and the radio recordings. We haven't seen a public statement from Air France yet.
Our Take
The system worked the way it's supposed to here, but it shouldn't have needed to. The controller caught the turn quickly, and modern planes also carry collision avoidance systems that warn pilots when another aircraft gets too close. That's the reassuring part. The uncomfortable part is that this was the latest in a string of wrong turns off one runway at one of the busiest airports in the country, at a time when the FAA is already short on controllers and still running parts of the system on decades-old technology.
For passengers, there's nothing you need to do differently. Close calls like this are rare, they're investigated precisely so they don't become accidents, and the layers of protection worked on Saturday. We've also covered recent close calls elsewhere, including an Air India Express near miss in Goa, and we'll update this story if the FAA or Air France says more.
