T'Way Air Flight Nearly Causes Runway Incursion at Osaka

On November 25th, a T'way Air flight nearly caused a runway incursion at Osaka Kansai Airport. The aircraft apparently passed a holding point on the taxiway before intercepting an active runway where another aircraft was taking off.

Flight Details

T'way Air Flight TW246 was a scheduled flight from Kansai International Airport (KIX) in Osaka, Japan to Jeju International Airport (CJU) in Jeju, South Korea. On November 25th, the flight was scheduled to depart at 12:00PM local time and arrive at 2:00PM (Japan and Korea are in the same time zone).

It is notable that the flight was operated as TW221 on FlightRadar24 records, but the flight did operate as TW246 according to its flight plan and T'way's website.

The flight was operated with a 15-year-old Boeing 737-800 registered as HL8069. It was delivered new to Ryanair on March 2009 as EI-EBT and transferred to T'way in May 2018.

On November 25th, 2024, the flight left the gate at 12:06PM and taxied towards Runway 24L. However at 12:16PM, it taxied past the holding point at Taxiway A2, intercepting Runway 24L.

At this time, Jin Air Flight LJ234 was taking off from the same runway in the opposite direction (Runway 06R). Fortunately, this flight (which was also operated by a Boeing 737-800) was climbing through 450 feet and avoided a collision with the T'way flight. LJ234 continued to its destination in Seoul/Incheon International Airport (ICN).

On the other hand, TW246 entered Runway 24L and backtracked for a short time, then exited the runway and followed Taxiway A to Runway 06R (where LJ234 took off 10 minutes ago). The flight took off at 12:30PM and arrived at Jeju International Airport on time at 2:01PM.

Aftermath                        

Following the incident, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of Japan and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport of South Korea both started investigating. The investigation would be focused on whether T'way breached safety guidelines or whether Kansai control made a mistake on handling flights. 

Unfortunately for T'way, this is not the first time getting involved in safety related incidents. The airline has been suffering from a lot of incidents recently, even getting a ban from the South Korean government. While the airline has grown substantially since receiving A330s to operate long-haul flights, the airline was criticized for having low operational reliability such as severe delays and aircraft malfunctions.

It is interesting that both aircraft involved were South Korean low-cost-carriers (LCC) departing from an airport in Japan. Additionally, when TW246 was taxiing, it was followed by Air Busan Flight BX171, another South Korean LCC. This made for an interesting screenshot on FlightRadar24 when the incident occurred.

HL8069 is currently flying the same TW246 flight at the time of writing.