Jet carrying 286 passengers slammed on its brakes and aborted a takeoff this week at Kennedy Airport after another plane began taxiing toward the runway it was using, the Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday. Lufthansa Flight 411 was cleared for takeoff and EgyptAir Flight 986 was instructed to stay behind a "hold line" 250 feet behind the runway at 6:50 p.m. on Monday, an FAA spokesperson said. The EgyptAir crossed the line but did not enter the runway, the spokesperson said. In radio recordings posted on the website LiveATC.net, a controller in the JFK tower is heard giving takeoff clearance to the Lufthansa flight while another controller directs the EgyptAir plane. "Cancel takeoff, cancel takeoff plans!" a controller shouts to the Lufthansa jet. The Lufthansa plane, an Airbus A340, slammed on its brakes and came to a stop. Then it taxied off the runway. The pilot told controllers he was worried his brakes may have overheated, so controllers sent a Port Authority crew to help check the plane's landing gear. "That was quite a show. Thought it was going to be a short career," a pilot who witnessed the aborted takeoff remarked on the radio. The FAA was looking at "pilot deviation" because the EgyptAir plane, a Boeing 777, didn't follow air traffic instructions.
