Near miss on Kennedy runway, FAA says

It was too close for comfort.

That's what the Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday about an incident Monday night at Kennedy Airport, when the failure of a jet pilot to execute instructions from the control tower put the plane less than a few hundred feet from a runway on which another jet was speeding toward takeoff.

The pilot aborted takeoff, FAA officials said.

Lufthansa Flight 411, an Airbus A-340 carrying 286 people, was jetting down Runway 22R as another plane, EgyptAir Flight 986, a Boeing 777, was taxiing from the gate "to the airfield" for departure around 7 p.m., said FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen.

The pilot of the EgyptAir Flight 986 was given instructions to make a turn, and the pilot read back the instructions correctly to the air traffic controller, but never made the proper turn, according to the FAA.

The EgyptAir jet crossed the "hold short" line for Runway 22R, which is about 250 feet short of the runway, but didn't enter the runway itself. Air traffic control instructed the Lufthansa jet to stop its "takeoff roll" before it reached EgyptAir Flight 986. An FAA investigation will determine how close the planes were, Bergen said.

Martin Riencken, a spokesman for Lufthansa, said the Munich-bound flight was delayed for about 90 minutes after the incident.

Mechanics checked the Lufthansa jet's brakes, which can run hot during sudden runway stops, before it left Kennedy, Riencken said.

Keith Holloway, spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board in Washington, D.C., said Wednesday that the agency was aware of the incident, but that no decision had been made about whether the NTSB would investigate it.

In radio recordings posted on the website LiveATC.net, a controller in the Kennedy tower can be heard giving takeoff clearance to the Lufthansa flight while another controller directs the EgyptAir plane, The Associated Press reported.

"Cancel takeoff! Cancel takeoff plans!" a controller shouts to the Lufthansa jet.