At approximately 6:55 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, July 30, 2026, at Washington’s National airport, two Republic-operated American Airlines regional flights with nearly identical callsigns were waiting at neighboring runways.
The tower cleared flight 4702 onto Runway 4. Flight 4752 apparently accepted that clearance as its own and entered Runway 1, forcing an arriving American Airlines 737 to go around. “Tower, there’s an airplane on Runway 1.”
- “Brickyard 4702” is American Airlines flight 4702 operated by Republic Airways from Washington National to New York LaGuardia, waiting for runway 4.
- “Brickyard 4752” is American Airlines flight 4752 operated by Republic Airways from Washington National to Raleigh, waiting for runway 1.
- “American 3101” is American Airlines flight 3101 coming in to land on runway 1 from Dallas – Fort Worth.
Aviation watchdog JonNYC flags the incident.
“Heard it was 800’ vertical between the arrival and the aircraft that took the wrong call. That doesn’t seem *that bad* to me but again all second hand and I haven’t seen a replay”
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) July 31, 2026
Here’s an air traffic control audio and playback of the flights:
TOWER: Brickyard 4702, Washington Tower, Runway 4, line up and wait. Traffic departs, lands Runway 1.
BRICKYARD 4702: Line up and wait, Brickyard 4702.
TOWER: American 3101, traffic holds Runway 4.
AMERICAN 3101: 3101. Tower, there’s an airplane on Runway 1.
TOWER: Brickyard 4752, uh—
[Brief overlapping or garbled transmission.]
TOWER: American 3101, go around. Turn left heading 250, maintain 3,000—correction, 280, maintain 3,000.
AMERICAN 3101: Uh, you were stepped on. Uh, I heard go around for American 3101, maintain 3,000, left turn. Say again the heading?
TOWER: American 3101, turn left heading 280, maintain 3,000.
AMERICAN 3101: Heading 280 and 3,000, American 3101.
TOWER: Brickyard 4752, just continue holding Runway 1. You wasn’t given access to the runway.
BRICKYARD 4752: Yeah, yeah, you told us line up and wait Runway 1, Brickyard 4752.
TOWER: Brickyard 4752, that was for Brickyard 4702 on Runway 4. Just continue holding on Runway 1.
BRICKYARD 4752: Continue hold Runway 1, Brickyard 4752.
Air traffic control instructed Brickyard 4702 to line up and wait on Runway 4. Nevertheless, both Republic jets started moving – flight 4752 toward runway 1, and 4702 toward runway 4.
American 3101 was told that traffic was holding on Runway 4. They expected that their landing runway, runway 1, was clear. However, they spotted the Republic Airways Embraer E175 on Runway 1 and air traffic control who sent them around.
The Republic jet (4752) was told it had not been authorized onto runway 1. The crew replied that they believed they had received a line-up-and-wait clearance for Runway 1. Tower explained that the clearance had been for 4702 on Runway 4.
Things got close between the aircraft, but not frighteningly so. At its lowest point of descent, American 3101 appears to have been about four-fifths of a mile from the runway and about 320 feet above the runway.
So what happened here? It sounds like 4752 and 4702 both heard an instruction the same way, and a simultaneous readback of the instructions may have gotten garbled. But we don’t know that there were two aircraft transmitting at the same time just from the audio.
Clearly, both crews accepted the same instruction. Brickyard 4752 began moving toward Runway 1 and five seconds later Brickyard 4702 began moving toward Runway 4. Both of them were moving after just one clearance from the tower.
- Maybe 4752’s readback of the instruction was blocked
- Maybe 4752 didn’t transmit back at all
- They could have heard enough of “Brickyard forty-seven…” to assume it was them, and simply heard their runway 1 instead of the clearly spoken Runway 4 instruction from the controller.
It’s one of those situations where it really wasn’t the instruction from air traffic control that’s to blame, unlike several recent events. (Although in this case a pilot’s read back might also have included the runway assignment and clearance to enter or line up and wait.
The two similar flight numbers on the same frequency at adjancent runways at the same time turned out to be problematic.
Some critics are going to blame to volume of traffic at the airport – “runway 1 is too busy” – but this was caused by an unauthorized runway entry, not inadequate spacing between aircraft that are correctly cleared.
Let’s also mention that radio traffic often sounds like garbage. Honestly, I give full credit to both pilots and ATC for being to understand each other on a regular basis. That they sometimes don’t (like in this case possibly) is more of an indictment of the system rather than individuals.
atc talks warp7 because their workload is manual and ancient
no one speaks icao pronunciation any more
we also can’t have alphanumeric flight numbers or use tail numbers for callsigns, because reasons
*sigh* We really should be doing much better, especially after AA5342.
Thanks for referring to it as Washington National, at least…
ATC is slow to change for a reason. Any new procedure / technology can introduce unanticipated consequences. Nevertheless, it is concerning that we still have 1) communications that can be stepped on, 2) all direction done by verbal orders. ATC could really use supporting technology that clarifies communications and spots mistakes. I imagine NASA and the FAA are working on this.
That happened to me years ago when I flew Northwest to MSP. That just reminds you that pilots, and controllers have a tough job.
Why not use alphanumeric numbers for flights? The four flight numbers for each plane in this almost incident, 4702 and 4752 are almost twins. If someone has dyslexia the mind can easily flip a 0 and a 5 and not know it happened. Mix in some letters.
It’s Ronald Reagan National Airport.
@Not triggered — If we’re gonna do the ‘umm-ackchuallee’ on here, let’s be clear, the full name is: “Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport” since 1998 (honoring the 40th and the 1st Presidents), and from 1941 to 1998, just “Washington National Airport,” IATA (DCA), ICAO (KDCA), and colloquially known as ‘National’ Airport, ‘Washington’ Airport, or just ‘Reagan’ (as opposed to ‘Dulles’). I presume Gary just goes with his preferred name, instead of having to explain the nuance each and every time. (Or, no, no, no… he was purposely removing Reagan, because… communism! Ahhh!!)
In my humble opinion, the loss of experienced controllers and pilots starting in 2019 left a giant hole in the air traffic control system and the pilot base. Both the airlines and the FAA hastily hired people with less experience than is really needed and ramped up training to “get ’em out the door”. KDCA, KJFK (well, the entire NYC area), KLAX and its surrounding areas are difficult for some experienced pilots. Young pilots, with great flying skills but NO experience, are being put in the left seat of major airline’s aircraft. These inexperienced controllers and pilots have the hours but they don’t have that innate “Hmm… something wrong here” that says STOP. One can also fault Congress. The ATC system is funded by airline’s substantial ticket taxes. landing fees and the like. General aviation is funded by an exorbitant fuel tax. Congress robs that fund to pay for pet projects of all sorts. I’m not going to denigrate current or past parties…they are both to blame.