Another near-miss on a runway in Nashville is latest in a recent rise in air safety incidents

Another near-miss on a Nashville runway accounted for the fifth close call across the country in just a few weeks, sparking concern about the recent rise in air safety incidents.

According to authorities, a JetBlue plane almost collided with a Learjet aircraft after the Learjet took off without permission from air traffic control on Monday evening. The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement, “An air traffic controller instructed the pilot of the Learjet to line up and wait on Runway 9 while the JetBlue Embraer 190 landed on Runway 4-Right, which intersects Runway 9. The Learjet pilot read back the instructions clearly but began a takeoff roll instead. The pilot of the JetBlue aircraft took evasive action and initiated a climb-out as the Learjet crossed the intersection.”

The incident is the latest in a string of similar occurrences on runways across the country. Another near-miss at JFK Airport in New York in January saw a Boeing 777 and a Boeing 737 almost collide on intersecting runways after one of the pilots took a wrong turn. In February, a United flight took a sudden nosedive in mid-air after leaving Hawaii and plunged toward the ocean before righting and flying on to its destination in San Francisco.

The Nashville incident took place just days after the FAA announced it had completed its new set of safety rules for airports across the country in an attempt to mitigate the number of incidents occurring nationwide. The FAA says “the new initiative will help airports detect and mitigate safety problems before they result in accidents or incidents.”