California

Harrison Ford in Incident With Passenger Plane at Calif. Airport

NBC News has learned that actor Harrison Ford was involved in a potentially serious incident on Monday as he was piloting his private plane, a single engine Husky.

Ford, an experienced pilot who collects vintage planes, had been instructed to land on runway 20-L at John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, but mistakenly aimed for a taxiway instead. His plane passed over the top of an American Airlines 737 loaded with 110 passengers and a six-person crew.

The passenger plane managed to depart safely for Dallas just minutes after the incident, reports NBC News.

Ford, 74, was captured on air traffic control recordings asking, "Was that airliner meant to be underneath me?"

Air traffic controllers then informed Ford that he had landed on a taxiway rather than the runway.

Landing on a taxiway is a violation of Federal Aviation Administration safety rules.

The FAA told NBC News that controllers gave Ford the proper landing instructions and that he read them back.

The incident has prompted an FAA investigation — which could result in anything from a simple warning letter to a suspension of Ford's pilot's license.

Ford has been involved in a series of crashes and near-misses while flying aircraft.

In 2015 he crash-landed a World War II-era airplane on a Santa Monica golf course after the engine failed, suffering a broken arm and minor head injuries.

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