Federal officials have begun investigating the close call between the planes in Boston, and released new details Thursday about the disturbing incident at the airport in Texas.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it has not determined exactly how close a FedEx cargo plane passed over a Southwest Airlines jet last month in Austin, Texas, but there is little margin.
“We still believe the plane was within 100 feet,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said in an interview.
Air traffic controllers had cleared both planes to use the same runway, the NTSB said in a preliminary report. With visibility down to a quarter mile due to freezing fog, the FedEx pilot didn’t see the Southwest jet until the final seconds.
The NTSB is also investigating Monday night’s incident at Boston’s Logan International Airport, where a Learjet pilot who was told by air traffic controllers to wait began to take off as a JetBlue plane approached to land on the runway. The JetBlue pilot pulled up, avoiding a collision.
The incident and similar ones in New York, California and Hawaii led the head of the Federal Aviation Administration to call for a “safety summit” and set off a debate over whether air safety has declined or if the incident was just an unusual group of calls.
“I don’t know if I can say it’s a trend, but it’s annoying because it only takes one,” Homendy said. “That’s why we investigate incidents – so we can identify problems, especially when we see trends, and deal with them before they become accidents.”
Among other recent incidents currently under investigation:
– Last week the pilot of a small plane aborted landing in Burbank, California, after the controller cleared another plane to take off from the same runway; at The NTSB is investigating.
– A United Airlines jet crosses the runway at Honolulu International Airport in front of a Cessna cargo plane which landed on the same runway on January 23.
– The NTSB took the rare step of issuing subpoenas to the pilot of the American Airlines flight that crossed the runway that the Delta Air Lines jet used to take off January 13 at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. The American pilot initially refused to sit for a taped interview, but he complied after being subpoenaed, Homendy said.
– Federal officials take back the incident in which the United Airlines jet took off from Hawaii dove to within 800 feet of the sea before it bounced back. United said the pilots of the December flight received additional training.
With the exception of the United plane that descended heavily after takeoff, the other incident was a “runway strike” in which the plane landed on the runway when it wasn’t supposed to be there. A 2017 forum organized by the NTSB found that the most common causes of runway incursions were pilots ignoring orders from air traffic controllers, or miscommunication between pilots and controllers.
“Runway incursions are always a problem, but they seem worse because the system is so secure,” said John Hansman, a professor of aeronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Fortunately there are not many accidents, so we focus on the precursors of these risks.”
Pilots are the last line of defense in aviation safety. In some recent incidents – especially in Austin – the pilot noticed something wrong and reacted quickly.
The incident could end the possibility of reducing experience requirements for newly hired pilots, which is what smaller, regional airlines are asking for help to deal with pilot shortages. President Joe Biden’s nominee for the FAA’s top job, Phillip Washington, said Wednesday that he opposes eliminating pilot qualification standards.
A close call could also lead to a demand for better technology at airports and on planes. Kennedy Airport has a ground surveillance radar designed to prevent runway attacks. This alerts controllers that an American Airlines flight is crossing an active runway. Only 35 US airports have the technology.
Investigatorswill not be able to hear what the pilot was doing before the latest incident because the cockpit voice recording was deleted after two hours of flight. Starting in 2018, the NTSB asked the FAA to require 25 hours of recording capability, which would increase the possibility of saving important information.
In addition to the close calls, there have also been several recent incidents of severe turbulence that have resulted in injuries on board. In the latest case, a Lufthansa flight flying from Austin to Germany was diverted to Washington Dulles International Airport on Wednesday night; seven people on board were injured enough to go to the hospital. The FAA says it is investigating.
The close call has caught the attention of lawmakers, who are asking FAA administrators to take action. The official, Billy Nolen, defended the security of the country’s air travel system last month while acknowledging the need for vigilance.
“We’re going through the safest period in the history of aviation, but we don’t think of it that way,” Nolen told the Senate committee. “Recent events remind us that we cannot be complacent.”
Nolen, like other airline industry executives, pointed out that there have been no fatal accidents involving US airliners since 2009, which was unprecedented.
Still, he said at the hearing and in an internal memo, he was creating a “security review team” to review the aviation system, starting with a meeting in March “to review additional actions the aviation community needs to take to maintain our safety record.” Nolen said aviation leaders will examine what measures “and why others seem to be ineffective as they have been.”
The FAA said Thursday that the summit will be March 15 and include representatives from commercial aviation, airport, labor and aviation experts.
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