Incident: Qatar B772 at Houston on Apr 24th 2026, runway incursion

A Qatar Airways Boeing 777-200 freighter, registration A7-BFP performing flight QR-8357 (sched. Apr 23rd, act. dep Apr 24th) from Houston Intercontinental,TX (USA) to Liege (Belgium), was taxiing for departure just before midnight (local time) and had initially been cleared to taxi via NP,NA hold short NE, but subsequently mistook an instruction for another aircraft for them and needed to be reminded by ground to hold short of NE. The aircraft taxied via NP and NA and held short of NE. Ground then cleared the aircraft then cleared another private aircraft, unreadable callsign (but sounding similiar to Qatari 835...) and apparently taxiing to the FBO ramp, to cross runway 08R at NE, turn right NA and hold short of runway 15R at WC. Ground subsequently instructed QR-8357: "holding short NE, you need to listen to callsigns, you followed two instructions that were not for you". Later the aircraft was cleared to taxi to runway 15R, but went past the hold short line, lined up and waited. The tower controller discovered the aircraft was already on the runway and told them, they had been cleared to taxi "to", but not "onto" the runway, the crew apologized for the misunderstanding. The controller instructed the crew to vacate the runway via taxiway WW and return to the holding point at WC, the crew queried whether the instruction for another aircraft (callsign again unclear on the recording available) was for them, the controller told them "you are not listening to callsigns, I said United not Qatari, you have been doing that all night long", repeated the instruction to vacate the runway via WW and taxi to the runway via WC re-iterating the crew had never been told to line up runway 15R and wait. The crew finally vacated the runway, returned to the holding point runway 15R at WC and was cleared for takeoff about 5 minutes after entering the runway the first time. The flight reached Liege without further incident.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/QTR8357/history/20260424/0420Z/KIAH/EBLG

Excerpt of Aerodrome Chart (Graphics: FAA):

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