Major tragedy averted!

As the Gonzaga University Men’s Basketball Team landed in LA for their game against UCLA, they nearly got into a fatal plane crash. The incident occurred on Friday at the Los Angeles International Airport. A chartered plane operated by Key Lime Air was carrying the team and was in motion to cross the runway. But at that very moment, a Delta Flight was running full speed for take-off in the direction of the team’s plane.

A harrowing footage shows the air traffic controller yelling, “Stop! Stop! Stop!” as the two planes headed toward each other for a potential crash. Fortunately, the Key Lime Flight put on the brakes before entering the runway, and the Delta aircraft took off successfully, avoiding a major disaster. Once the flight took off, the Gonzaga team’s plane crossed the runway.

However, the two flights should never have been in that situation in the first place. Notably, the Federal Aviation Administration has launched an investigation to derive the cause of a near-mishap. Moreover, an FAA spokesperson also addressed the incident, “Air traffic controllers directed Key Lime Air Flight 563 to hold short of crossing a runway at Los Angeles International Airport because a second aircraft was taking off from the runway at the time.”

The statement continued, “When the Embraer E135 jet proceeded to cross the hold bars, air traffic controllers told the pilots to stop. The jet never crossed the runway edge line.”

Fortunately, no one got hurt. However, the near miss left cameraman Kevin Ray shocked as he remarked, “Wow, in the years I’ve been doing this, I’ve never heard an ATC controller tell a plane to ‘Stop, stop, stop.’” Even the hoop community was left horrified.

NBA World shocked after Gonzaga Team’s near escape as Aviation Industry’s “Bad Week” continues

Obviously, the hoop community was as stunned as the cameraman who shot the video of the incident and comments like “Wow. That was way too close” and “A huge tragedy almost happened on that airfield. How that type of mixup could happen in his mind-blowing” began flooding in.

Meanwhile, one netizen pointed out, “Something bad is gonna happen if this keeps happening.” The Gonzaga team and other passengers on both flights were fortunate to avoid a crash. However, that might not end up being the case every time if such carelessness continues. Another fuming netizen wrote, “Now that a sportsball team almost got taken out, maybe they will look into this issue.”

Surely, the fact that a renowned basketball team was involved in the incident will attract more eyeballs. Hopefully, it will also help solve the issue and avoid future tragedies. Meanwhile, one user claimed, “Been a bad week for the aviation industry.”

Well, it honestly has been a tough few days in the skies worldwide. Apart from this Gonzaga team incident, a flight crash in South Korea took 179 people’s lives and one incident in Kazakhstan killed 38 people. Hopefully, the FAA’s investigation will help find the root cause of what occurred in LAX and prevent such incidents.