Private jet carrying Gonzaga men’s basketball team narrowly avoids plane crash while taking off at LAX

Last weekend, a private jet carrying Gonzaga University's men's basketball team reportedly avoided a collision with a Delta Air Lines plane. The incident happened at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).

A video uploaded on the "Airline Videos" YouTube channel depicts the incident, in which an air traffic controller (ATC) at LAX is heard directing the Key Lime Air jet to halt by saying,

"Stop! Stop! Stop!"

Fortunately, no one was reported injured due to the incident. However, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has launched an investigation into the avoided mishap involving the Gonzaga Bulldogs men's basketball team. Here's what the FAA said in a statement:

"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.

FAA further added,

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."

The incident was captured during Airline Videos Live's plane spotting broadcast on December 27, 2024. The plane jockey Kevin Ray noted,

"The years I have been doing this, I have never heard an ATC controller tell a plane to 'Stop! Stop! Stop!'"

The incident occurred on Runway 24L, where the Delta Air Lines plane was in the middle of taking off.

Internet reacts to the "near-miss" clip of jet carrying Gonzaga men's basketball team

After the video of the Gonzaga basketball team's jet avoiding a plane crash went viral, internet users quickly reacted. One user took a sigh of relief at the near-miss as they wrote,

"Thank goodness no one was hurt! – That could have been tragic."

The tweets didn't end there, as others continued to react:

"I get the risk, but how close what that in the grand scheme of things? What is normal?," one said.

"Been a bad week for the aviation industry," someone noted.

"Weird angle. The grounded plane was not on the runway. Still scary though," another user observed.

"An awful lot of stuff going on with airplanes in the last few weeks," a user shared their concern.

"Man, that was too close for comfort. It's happening way too often," another said.

"Wild times we living in," a user declared.

"So close! Averted a tragedy and maintained control, thank God," someone wrote.

Fortunately, everything went well in the end. No further updates on the investigation have been reported at the time of the writing.

On Monday, December 30, the Gonzaga men's basketball team faced Pepperdine Waves. The Spokane-based college basketball team won by 89-82 against Pepperdine to open their West Coast Conference (WCC) regular season with a victory.