FAA officials say required separation was maintained after another aircraft entered the runway in Louisville.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A UPS cargo jet aborted its landing at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport early Tuesday after a smaller plane turned onto the runway without authorization, prompting a tense exchange with air traffic control and a federal investigation into the close call.
No one was hurt, but the incident quickly drew attention because it happened at the same airport where a UPS cargo plane crashed in November, killing 14 people. Louisville is home to UPS Worldport, the company’s largest air hub, and the airport plays a central role in overnight package traffic. Federal officials have said only that the required separation between the two aircraft was maintained, leaving unanswered how close the planes came and why the smaller aircraft entered the runway.
The near miss happened at about 12:10 a.m. on Tuesday, April 14, as UPS Airlines Flight 1303, a Boeing 767 arriving from Atlanta, was coming in to land. A smaller aircraft identified in air traffic audio as Skylab 25 moved onto the runway ahead of it. The tower controller reacted at once. “Skylab 25, stop,” the controller said before telling the UPS crew to go around. Moments later, after the cargo jet climbed away safely, the controller asked, “Skylab 25, what are you doing?” The reply came back: “Yeah, sorry about that.” Audio of the exchange circulated online and gave the public a rare real-time look at how quickly runway conflicts can unfold. UPS later said its crew followed tower instructions and carried out the maneuver safely, avoiding what could have become a far more serious event.
The FAA’s initial account was brief but important. The agency said air traffic control instructed UPS Flight 1303 to perform a go-around after another aircraft turned onto the runway without authorization and that the required separation was maintained. Local reporting said the smaller plane was departing Louisville for Columbus, Ohio, though federal officials had not publicly released a full timeline of its taxi route or clearance by Friday. That left several key facts unresolved. Authorities had not publicly explained whether the smaller aircraft misunderstood an instruction, whether the runway entry was the result of a wrong turn, or whether airport markings, lighting or cockpit workload played any role. The FAA also had not said whether it planned enforcement action against the pilot or operator. What is clear is that the event was treated as a runway incursion serious enough to force an arriving jet to abandon its landing seconds before touchdown.
The setting gave the incident unusual weight. Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport is not a lightly used field where a close call might pass with little notice. It is home to Worldport, UPS’s giant sorting and flight center, which the company says supports more than 20,000 jobs in the greater Louisville area. The hub handles roughly 2 million packages a day and supports more than 300 flights daily, making the airport one of the country’s busiest cargo gateways. The memory of last year’s disaster is also still fresh. On Nov. 4, 2025, UPS Flight 2976, an MD-11F headed to Honolulu, crashed shortly after takeoff from Louisville. The NTSB has said the three crew members aboard were killed along with 11 people on the ground, and another 23 people on the ground were injured. With that background, even a safely resolved go-around at the same airport was bound to draw close scrutiny from aviation officials, workers and families still shaken by the earlier crash.
The current case is now in the early fact-finding stage. The FAA said it is investigating, and the next steps will likely include a review of tower audio, radar tracks, controller instructions and runway movement data. Officials may also examine whether the smaller aircraft had been cleared to cross elsewhere, whether the pilot read back any instruction incorrectly, and how much time separated the runway entry from the UPS crew’s pull-up. By Friday, no public report had laid out the exact distance between the planes, and no separate public hearing had been announced for this incident. The next scheduled aviation proceeding in Louisville is tied to the earlier tragedy, not this week’s close call. The NTSB said it will hold a two-day investigative hearing on May 19 and 20 in Washington on the November 2025 UPS crash. That hearing is expected to focus on the fatal accident, but it also means aviation safety in Louisville will remain under a bright public spotlight in the weeks ahead.
The human side of the latest incident came through most clearly in the controller’s voice. There was no long buildup, only a sharp command and then a question that captured the alarm of the moment. In a busy overnight cargo operation, where planes move on tight schedules and crews depend on precise instructions, a single wrong turn can force split-second decisions. The UPS crew’s response appeared calm and practiced, and the flight landed safely after the missed approach. Even so, the exchange echoed more loudly because of where it happened. For workers at Worldport and for Louisville residents who watched the aftermath of the November crash, the sound of a controller urgently trying to stop a runway conflict was more than routine radio traffic. It was a reminder that aviation safety often depends on small decisions made in seconds, under pressure, in darkness, with no room for confusion.
As of Friday, the FAA had confirmed the investigation and said the planes maintained the required separation, but it had not publicly explained how the runway mix-up occurred. The next clear milestone is May 19, when the NTSB opens hearings into the 2025 UPS crash at the same airport.
Author note: Last updated April 17, 2026.