Southwest Airlines jet forced to abort takeoff after small plane makes wrong turn on Texas runway

SAN ANTONIO -- What could have been a major disaster was averted with just seconds to spare at a busy U.S. airport.

An air traffic controller can be heard on a recording saying, "cancel takeoff clearance."

A Southwest Airlines jet traveling more than 100 miles per hour was forced to abort takeoff, when a small propeller plane took a wrong turn and entered the same runway without clearance at an airport in San Antonio, Texas.

Southwest said in a statement, "The flight later departed for Dallas uneventfully."

The incident took place the same day the head of the National Transportation Safety Board warned about crowded airspace in parts of the country, in the wake of the deadly mid-air crash over Washington last year.

"The next mid-air (collision) is going to be at Burbank, and nobody at FAA is paying attention to us," NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said.

In response, the Burbank airport said safety is its "top priority."

Airport officials continued on to say "work to help alleviate the risks" at the airport "has been underway since immediately after the midair collision" near Reagan National airport last year.

The Federal Aviation Administration says, after that crash, it's been using "AI tools to identify similar hotspots with high volumes of mixed helicopter and airplane traffic" to make safety improvements.

Despite that safety warning from the NTSB, the number of crashes last year was the lowest since 2020, during the COVID pandemic.