I’m not sure what to make of this incident, other than being grateful that the Southwest Airlines pilots seemed to know what they were doing…
Van Nuys tower struggles to deal with difficult situation
VASAviation has the air traffic control audio and a visualization of a close call in Southern California, which happened on March 17, 2025. It involves two aircraft:
- N610GD, a Cessna Citation Encore, which was flying from Borger, Texas (BGD), to Van Nuys, California (VNY)
- Southwest flight WN2961, a Boeing 737-700, which was flying from Sacramento, California (SMF), to Burbank, California (BUR)
It’s worth understanding that the airports of Van Nuys and Burbank are just eight miles apart, so planes operating to and from those airport often use the same airspace, and can cross paths. On this particular day, the weather wasn’t great, with deteriorating visibility for the aircraft approaching Van Nuys.
Essentially what happened is that the Cessna Citation never got a visual of the runway it was supposed to land on, and ended up having to go around. The issue is that the Southwest 737 was descending at the same time, flying over Van Nuys Airport, very close to the path of the Cessna Citation. The aircraft ended up losing separation, triggering a TCAS alert (Traffic Collision Avoidance System).
I’d recommend giving the video below a watch, as it’s quite something. TCAS alerts aren’t that uncommon, but it’s the way the interaction happens that really makes this interesting, if you ask me.
What’s going on with this mess?!?
Kudos to the Southwest pilots, who were doing exactly what they needed to do, so you can’t fault anything about their performance. But when it comes to the Cessna Citation pilot and the air traffic controller, well, where do we start?
The Cessna Citation pilot just seemed woefully unprepared. Okay, he couldn’t see the runway, which happens, but then he asked for vectors, even though he was told twice that the runway was at his 12 o’clock, and he was maintaining the same heading.
The wildest part is that as he was asking for the vectors for the runway, he already seemed to start climbing altitude, suggesting that he was executing a missed approach, without actually communicating that to the controller. For that matter, he was not flying the published missed approach sequence from the airport, as clearly he didn’t read up on that.
Meanwhile I’m not sure what’s going on with the air traffic controller. No shade, but was he a trainee? He seemed to struggle to provide any sort of instructions when he was most needed, and just sort of froze. Compare that to the below controller from a recent incident I covered in Phoenix, who is an absolute champ.
Bottom line
A Southwest Boeing 737 and Cessna Citation had a close call in Southern California, as the private jet attempted to land in Van Nuys, while the 737 attempted to land in Burbank. Close calls happen, and that’s why TCAS so often saves the day.
However, the combination of the Cessna Citation pilot and the air traffic controller really leave something to be desired, as this was kind of painful to listen to.
What do you make of this close call?
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