Posted on 03/06/2008 5:54:59 AM PST by Wolfie
Officials: Planes Avoid Mid-Air Crash
Two airplanes carrying more than 120 passengers narrowly averted a mid-air collision east of Pittsburgh after an air traffic control trainee told a Delta Air Lines pilot to turn into the path of an oncoming plane, officials said.
The Delta pilot made a nosedive and missed the plane by about 400 feet, the Federal Aviation Administration said. The other pilot also took evasive action, the FAA said.
A cockpit collision avoidance system alerted the pilots to the danger.
Delta Flight 1654 was en route from Cincinnati to LaGuardia International Airport in New York Tuesday morning and was carrying 57 passengers. The other plane, PSA Flight 2273, was flying from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., to Charlotte, N.C. It had 70 people on board.
PSA is a subsidiary of Tempe, Ariz.-based US Airways Group, Inc. Delta Air Lines Inc. is based in Atlanta.
The controller only had about a year on the job, said Melissa Ott, National Air Traffic Controllers spokeswoman at the Cleveland Air Route Traffic Control Center in Oberlin.
"We watched the recording of the incident three times and each time I said, 'Oh my God,'" Ott said. "It was the closest call I have ever seen in my 18 years of air traffic control."
FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory called the incident an operational error. She said a second controller was working with the trainee at the time.
"This ended with the aircraft taking the appropriate action," Cory said. "The controllers will be retrained."
A Delta spokeswoman said the passengers "were never in danger."
“the passengers “were never in danger.”
LoL
That will get your heart rate up. I’ve actually been on a flight that had to take the “nose dive” option, and believe me it’s horrific to be going almost straight down. And, I’m a pilot.
Must be a government outfit, huh?
"It was the closest call I have ever seen in my 18 years of air traffic control."
A Delta spokeswoman said the passengers "were never in danger."
Except for the part about being scattered over several square miles, of course.
I can imagine. Scariest moment I ever had on a big commercial jet was just as we were about to touch down at LAX (the plane was over the broad stripes at the beginning of the runway), the pilot gunned the engines and we took off. Over the intercom, he told us that there was a plane still on the runway...
Forgets comedians name who questioned why they call it a “near miss” when in reality it’s a “near hit”.
There seem to be more of these near hit’s happening. Whats up with that?
Well, then you know this isn't an isolated incident and also isn't isolated to trainee controllers. I'm just a GA pilot and in the past 5 years or so I've had a half dozen incidents where ATC cleared me and somebody else to land at the same time on the same runway, or directed me to turn into oncoming traffic, etc. I've been flying for more than 30 years now and this is becoming pretty routine. As such, I've started to avoid Class B and Class C airspace unless it's absolutely necessary to reach my destination....
We would not be having these ATC problems if they would just relent and go to a GPS-based computerized system. Too many planes in the air and too few commercial runways...
That rates right up there with "the check is in the mail"...
God, I don’t even want to think about being on a commercial flight when it takes a nose dive.
That would scare the living hell out of me!
We lost about 3,000 feet of altitude in seconds, and the stu’s were hanging onto the seatbacks with their feet suspended from the deck of the aircraft. Crazy, but it sure beat the alternative!
A friend was just telling me that her daughter had this same type of incident on a flight to Kansas City about a week ago. They didn’t know until she landed and called them but they were still very shaken over the “what if”.
You and me both.
closest call I ever had was in Chicago - we were on the taxi and the pilot stood on the brakes - apparently another jet tried to share the taxi way
“A cockpit collision avoidance system alerted the pilots to the danger”...that the passengers were never in.
Only the pilots were in danger
I watched a near miss a few months ago. A Southwest jet flying west on approach to Love Field and a twin engine craft taking off south bound out of Addison Airport. The two aircraft were on a 90 degree path to each other. Neither took evasive action until after the near miss over IH-635.
Can you imagine the wreckage on LBJ?
I think I would double check his backgound.
You mean you would favor a modern, GPS based system over the '60's vintage, IBM System 36 mainframe air traffic control system that is being held together with bailing wire and bubble gum that is currently in use? Why, didn't you know it's far more important for Congress to vote themselves another pay raise or to provide Federal funding tattoo removal or other pork projects, as opposed to actually upgrading our air traffic control system or other infrastructure? You are a Maverick!
A new job awaits them at the TSA.
Same place, exact same scenario for me, on a flight home from San Francisco...only the pilot never said a word; had to axe the waitress on our way out once we got on the ground.
George Carlin? That sounds like one of his.
From the news report I just read:
“The trainee, one Abdul bin Saud, has been temporarily suspended pending a full psychological evaluation for the severe emotional trauma he experienced during the event. He is expected to be returned to duty when he stops soiling his robes.
“A spokesman for the FAA said that Saud, a native of Iran, and 320 of his countrymen were hired recently to meet the terms of the Kennedy/Pelosi Employment Diversity and Firearms Confiscation Act passed by Congress in early 2007. It’s sponsors believed that making citizens of hostile muslim nations part of the American workforce would cause Iran and others “...stop hating us.”
Bingo. Thanks..
Well then, that would be ok, because everyone knows these things can fly for miles without the first third of the plane attached. Just ask the FBI
You’re quite right of course...when the first third of the plane and the tail are removed the darn things actually zoom straight up...like...like...well, nearly like a missile.
A well known fact.
and well substantiated with pictures, (moving pictures at that) and circles and arrows and such.
Actually, that was a CIA-produced animation/cartoon.
which was quite interesting, since it was a mere aviation mechanical mishap and all.
the passengers “were never in danger.”
Yeah, that was the line that caught my attention, too. I wonder what they consider “danger” to be? Apparently, a possible mid-air crash doesn’t qualify.
Maybe that is just an obligatory line that bureaucrats must throw out in situations like this. It’s probably in the instruction manual.
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