SALON

Wednesday, Sep 5, 2012 9:45 PM UTC

Close-plane mishap rattled air traffic controllers

By

Topics: From the Wires,

WASHINGTON (AP) — Air-traffic controllers were rattled after mistakenly flying three planes too close together in the skies near the nation’s capital, a federal report released Wednesday says, describing a chaotic scene in an airport tower during those minutes.

The National Transportation Safety Board’s 14-page report confirms some of what investigators already released about what happened on July 31 at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, including that miscommunication led to the too-close flights.

The report also provides more detail about what happened when controllers cleared two outbound flights to head in the direction of an incoming plane.

The head of the Federal Aviation Administration said soon after the too-close call that the three U.S. Airways commuter flights, which were carrying 192 passengers and crew, were on different headings and at different altitudes, and would not have crashed. However, federal guidelines require commercial jets to maintain a certain distance between them, 1,000 vertical feet and 3.5 lateral miles separation, and they came within that required distance.

The report released Wednesday describes a tower supervisor dropping the phone and jumping in to help solve the problem during the confusion.

The report also explains the miscommunication between controllers in the tower at Reagan and others at a regional air center in Virginia that guides planes into area airports. Because of bad weather to the south, a regional controller called the Reagan tower to ask to briefly land planes in a direction opposite the airport’s traffic flow. The request was rare, and after the incident, the FAA said it was barring airports nationwide from the same maneuver until a standardized procedure can be put in place.

The report said the unusual request by the regional controller would normally require coordinating with the tower supervisor. In this case, however, the supervisor was on a different phone line making overtime assignments for the next day. And the controller at the tower who took the call misheard the request, believing she was simply being asked to decrease the space between arriving flights, something she would be allowed to do on her own.

Controllers then watched as the aircraft came too close at about 2 p.m. The report says that one regional air traffic controller gasped when she saw what was happening.

Afterward, the tower supervisor and regional supervisor talked by phone.

“Ok well I think we had an error there,” the supervisor at the tower said.

“Yeah, probably a couple of them,” responded the regional supervisor.

___

Follow Jessica Gresko at http://twitter.com/jessicagresko

More Jessica Gresko.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations