American Airlines flight discontinues landing to avoid departing plane at Washington National

An American Airlines plane arriving at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport discontinued its landing, performing a go-around at an air traffic controller’s instruction to avoid getting too close to another aircraft departing from the same runway, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

The maneuver involving American Flight 2246 from Boston occurred around 8:20 a.m. Tuesday, less than two hours before another plane attempting to land at Chicago’s Midway Airport was forced to climb back into the sky to avoid another aircraft crossing the runway. Southwest said Flight 2504 from Omaha, Nebraska, safely landed “after the crew performed a precautionary go-around to avoid a possible conflict with another aircraft that entered the runway,” an airline spokesperson said in an email. “The crew followed safety procedures and the flight landed without incident.”

The American flight “landed safely and normally” at National Airport after air traffic control instructed pilots to complete a go-around “to allow another aircraft more time for takeoff,” American Airlines said in a statement.

“American has a no-fault go-around policy as a go-around is not an abnormal flight maneuver and can occur nearly every day in the National Airspace System,” the airline said. “It’s a tool in both the pilot’s and air traffic controller’s toolbox to help maintain safe and efficient flight operations.”

The past few weeks have seen four major aviation disasters in North America. They include the Feb. 6 crash of a commuter plane in Alaska that killed all 10 people on board and the Jan. 26 midair collision between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines flight at National Airport that killed all 67 aboard the two aircraft.

A medical transport jet with a child patient, her mother and four others aboard crashed Jan. 31 into a Philadelphia neighborhood. That crash killed seven people, including all those aboard, and injured 19 others.

Twenty-one people were injured Feb. 17 when a Delta flight flipped and landed on its roof at Toronto’s Pearson Airport.