FAA investigating Southwest Airlines’ near miss of LaGuardia tower

A Southwest Airlines jet almost hit the air traffic control tower at New York’s LaGuardia Airport in the thick of stormy weather last month.

Now, the Federal Aviation Administration “will determine if the aircraft flew over the tower at LaGuardia,” officials told Fox Business Thursday.

Southwest Flight 147 left Nashville International Airport on March 23 at 10:43 a.m. EDT and encountered a storm that stretched from Boston to Baltimore, according to the tracking website FlightAware.

The plane tried landing at LaGuardia, but it veered off course. When it almost hit the 233-foot tower, the plane was only 300 feet up, according to CBS News.

The air traffic controller urgently told the pilots to go around the tower and climb to 2,000 feet. The pilot “was not aligned with the runway at all. … He was not gonna land on the runway,” the controller explained to the plane, according to audio from LiveATC.net.

Six crew members and 147 passengers were on the plane, Southwest Airlines told CBS, adding that the company is “reviewing the event as part of our safety systems.”

Flight 147 diverted to Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport before ultimately returning to LaGuardia and landing safely March 23, according to FlightAware.