Near collisions aren’t necessarily a function just of busy airports. They can occur at smaller fields too. Consider what happened last Friday (September 19), at Allentown. Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley International Airport (ABE) (Web site: www.lvia.org) to be precise.
A Mesa Airlines (Web site: www.mesa-air.com) regional jet headed for Chicago O’Hare was taking off on Runway 6 (runway numbers are pegged to compass headings). According to a prepared release by the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) (Web site: www.natca.org), the regional jet had to abort its take off and swerve to avoid a Cessna, which had just landed on the same runway. The jet returned to the terminal, and the flight was scrubbed.
“This was a very serious incident,” says Patrick Forrey, NATCA President. What bothers the controller chief is who was in the tower at the time directing traffic. According to NATCA’s release, a controller trainee “working local control in the tower thought he saw the Cessna clear the runway and cleared the RJ for take off. But the Cessna missed the taxiway and was still on the runway as the RJ was picking up speed.” So close did the speeding regional jet come to the smaller craft that “it had to swerve to the left to avoid a collision.”
Forrey contends the incident is indicative of what he terms, “the FAA’s understaffing issues nationwide, and our concerns about allowing newly and partially certified controllers to work on their own.” The NATCA chief goes on to charge, “The FAA is so desperate to staff its towers they are forced to work trainees by themselves without adequate numbers of experienced controllers to work with them.”
NATCA says at the time of the near-collision, “There were two Federal Aviation Administration (Web site: www.faa.gov) employees in the tower, both controller trainees.”
It’s important to note that NATCA and FAA have been embroiled for the past two years in a sometimes bitter contract dispute involving, among other matters, work rules. The Federal Aviation Administration insists the nation’s air traffic control system is safe. The last commercial crash to occur in this country was August 27, 2006. That’s when a Comair CRJ crashed shortly after take off from Lexington, KY (LEX). Forty-nine of the 50 on board died. The pilots took off on a runway that was too short.
Ironically, the near-collision comes as the House Aviation Subcommittee prepares to hold a follow-up hearing this Thursday (September 25) on runway safety. The National Transportation Safety Board (Web site: www.ntsb.com) continues to rank reducing runway incursions at the top of its Most Wanted List.
© Cheapflights Ltd Jerry Chandler
