A Southwest Airlines flight almost took off from a taxiway—rather than a runway—at a central Florida airport on Thursday before an air traffic controller stopped the plane, officials said. No injuries were reported, and passengers departing Orlando International Airport were accommodated on another aircraft heading to their destination of Albany, New York, the airline said in a statement. The aircraft was switched to help facilitate an investigation, the AP reports. Southwest Flight 3278 had been cleared for takeoff and initiated a takeoff roll—when an aircraft starts accelerating ahead of takeoff—on a taxiway after the crew mistook the surface for the nearby runway, officials said.
But air traffic controllers canceled the clearance before the plane could take off. Taxiways are routes used by planes to move on the ground between gates, hangars, and runways. They're not built for high-speed acceleration and they are often cluttered with other planes waiting to depart, WFTV reports. They're also shorter than runways, meaning attempts to take off from one could lead to an over-run or crash. Similar mistakes have caused deadly accidents in the past. The Federal Aviation Administration said the taxiway in the Thursday incident was parallel to the runway, reports Fox 35. Southwest is working with the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.
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