FAA Probes Two Close Calls at Boston Logan Airport

BOSTON, Mass. - There's an unspoken rule when you're flying in and out of a place as often as I do: you learn to read the energy of a go-around. Most of the time it's bumpy weather, maybe a tailwind, something atmospheric. But when you're pulling up off a landing because another jet is still sitting on the runway where you're supposed to touch down, that's a different kind of adrenaline. That happened twice in two days at Boston Logan International Airport, and now both the FAA and NTSB are trying to figure out how.

Two Close Calls, One Weekend

According to the Associated Press, a Delta Air Lines flight arriving from Dallas aborted its landing over the weekend after an American Airlines aircraft had been cleared for takeoff on an intersecting runway. Flight tracking data show Delta Flight 2351 broke off its approach at around 11:30 a.m. local time as American Airlines Flight 3161 was accelerating for departure on the crossing runway, according to CBS58.

That was Saturday. On Sunday, another Delta flight, this time Flight 1075, was instructed by Logan air traffic control to go around at about 5:45 p.m. because yet another aircraft was still on the runway, according to Reuters. Both planes landed safely after the go-arounds, but the proximity and timing have put Logan's runway operations under a federal microscope.

The FAA confirmed it was already investigating a separate close call at Logan from earlier that same weekend, making the Sunday go-around the second serious runway safety event under review, according to CNN. The NTSB opened its own probe into the Boston near-miss, signaling that federal investigators consider the event significant enough for a parallel safety investigation and possible recommendations, Reuters reported.

How Close Were They?

Analyses of Flightradar24 data by experts and media outlets indicate the two jets came within roughly 300 feet of each other at their closest point, about the length of a football field. "This is a significant incident," said aviation safety expert Todd Curtis, noting that the close call involved two professional airline crews and underscoring longstanding federal concerns about runway incursions, according to CBS58.

The Delta aircraft involved in Saturday's incident, an Airbus A319/A321, was carrying around 129 passengers and six crew members, about 135 people total onboard. They later landed safely and passengers deplaned normally with no injuries reported, according to the Associated Press.

"Delta 2351 going around because of American," the Delta pilot radioed to the tower as the crew aborted landing to avoid the intersecting American Airlines jet, according to recorded air traffic control audio cited by CBS58.

Communication Breakdown at the Heart of It

Air traffic control audio captured the tower querying the American flight, asking "Where are you heading?" The American pilot responded that the aircraft had been cleared for takeoff, highlighting a potential communication or clearance breakdown, according to the Associated Press. "American 3161, where are you heading?" a Logan tower controller asked, to which the American pilot replied, "You cleared us for takeoff, 3161," illustrating the communication at the heart of the investigation, CBS58 reported.

Both incidents involved intersecting runways rather than parallel, increasing operational complexity and the risk of incursions, according to CNN. Intersecting runways mean that timing, communication, and clearance protocols have to be flawless; there's no margin for ambiguity when one plane is landing and another is rolling across its path.

Part of a Bigger Pattern

This isn't an isolated problem. According to a review from the NBC10 Investigators cited by Reuters, there were 30 incidents involving near mid-air collisions in Boston in the last decade. There have been multiple near-misses in 2024 alone, the review found.

Safety experts and some investigators frame the incidents as serious loss-of-separation events that reflect broader systemic issues with runway incursions, controller workload, and communication protocols at busy U.S. airports, according to CNN. Industry and policy voices view the Boston close calls as part of a larger trend of near-miss incidents, arguing they should drive reviews of air traffic control staffing, technology, and procedures at major hubs with intersecting runway layouts, Reuters reported.

What This Means If You're Flying Through Boston

Go-arounds are standard, practiced procedures intended to protect passengers. The fact that they worked as designed is good news; nobody got hurt, both planes landed, and the pilots did exactly what they were trained to do. But the fact that they were necessary twice in 48 hours at the same airport, on intersecting runways, with audio suggesting confusion about who had clearance, is not normal. It's a red flag.

If you're a frequent flyer through Logan, you're statistically still very safe. But these incidents should make you pay attention to the bigger conversation happening around runway incursions and controller workload. The FAA and NTSB investigations will likely take months, and recommendations could follow that change how intersecting runways are managed, how clearances are communicated, or how technology assists controllers in high-traffic environments.

For now, the practical takeaway is this: go-arounds might feel alarming, but they're the system working. What's alarming is that the system needed to intervene twice in one weekend at the same place. That's the part federal investigators are trying to understand, and it's worth watching closely if Boston is part of your regular travel rotation.