Harrowing footage shows near miss on LAX runway

The planes nearly collided on the tarmac in harrowing scenes, with one desperately ordered to stop as onlookers watched on in horror.

Harrowing footage captured the moment two US planes nearly collided with each other on the tarmac.

A Delta flight nearly crashed into a private jet carrying the entire Gonzaga University basketball team on the runway at Los Angeles International Airport.

“Stop, stop, stop!” an air-traffic controller can be heard yelling at the plane carrying the men’s team as it prepares to cross a runway at LAX around 4.30pm Friday local time, according to The New York Post reported.

The rolling jet — Key Lime Air Flight 563 — comes to a sudden stop, just as Delta Flight 471, an Airbus A321, comes barrelling up the runway at full speed and lifts off.

The two planes nearly hit each other, with one ordered to stop.

“Woo! Woo! Wow,” a plane-spotter who was filming the runway and uploaded the video to Airline Videos on YouTube could be heard exclaiming just after the near-miss.

“In the years I’ve been doing this, I’ve never heard a ATC controller tell a plane to ‘Stop, stop, stop,’” the plane spotter added as the private jet kept rolling once the runway was clear.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has opened an investigation into the incident.

“Air traffic controllers directed Key Lime Air Flight 563 to hold short of crossing a runway at Los Angeles International Airport because a second aircraft was taking off from the runway at the time,” an FAA spokesperson told NBC 4 Los Angeles.

The Gonzaga Bulldogs were on the plane which was ordered to stop. Picture: Robert Johnson/Getty Images

“When the Embraer E135 jet proceeded to cross the hold bars, air traffic controllers told the pilots to stop. The jet never crossed the runway edge line,” they added.

Gonzaga’s plane – a chartered Embraer ERJ-135, according to FlightAware – had just landed from Washington ahead of a game against UCLA.

The university told the LA Times it “expects to receive more information related to this event, and is grateful that the incident ended safely for all.”

Delta’s flight — which was headed to Atlanta — was not affected by the near-miss, according to the airline.

At least 3.2 million passengers are expected to pass through LAX during the holiday weeks between December 19 and the new year.

The close call came during a deadly week in the skies across the world.

The Gomzaga Bulldogs were in LA to play against UCLA. They had lost the game and were returning home when disaster nearly struck. Picture: Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images

In South Korea on Sunday, 179 passengers were killed when a Jeju Air flight slammed into a concrete barrier at the end of a runway.

And on Wednesday, 38 people were killed when an Azerbaijani passenger plane crashed in Kazakhstan in a wreck authorities suspect was caused by Russian missiles.

The wrecks made 2024 the deadliest year for air travel since 2018, with 318 total fatalities, according to Bloomberg.

This story originally appeared in The New York Post and was reproduced here with permission.