Video: CBS News obtained a recording of Michelle Obama's plane being diverted during a near-miss incident with a large cargo plane. Audio courtesy of LiveATC.net.
When the handoff occurred, the planes were 3.08 miles apart, radar shows, but the Warrenton controller told the Andrews tower that they were four miles apart. Before handing off, the Warrenton controller warned Obama’s pilot of potential wake turbulence.
In the Andrews tower, controllers had already identified “a serious loss of separation” but were reluctant to contact the Warrenton facility to point it out, officials said.
A look at an air traffic controller’s 2-2-1 schedule.
The FAA is investigating a near-miss incident involving a plane carrying first lady Michelle Obama and a large cargo plane. Bob Orr reports signs point to air traffic controller error.
The Andrews controllers ordered the S-turns as soon as they assumed responsibility, but the two planes still grew closer. Finally, fearing the cargo plane couldn’t get off the runway in time for the Obama plane to land, they ordered the 737 to abort the landing attempt.
“In the grand scheme of things, events like this happen fairly frequently,” said another federal official who works with the air traffic control system but is not authorized to speak publicly. “Unfortunately, this one involves a presidential plane.”
Directing traffic
Both go-arounds and errors by air traffic controllers are not uncommon. Controllers at Potomac TRACON, who direct more than 1.5 million flights a year to area airports, made a record number of errors in 2010.
Nationwide, recorded errors by controllers increased 51 percent last year to 1,869.
The Potomac facility recorded 52 controller errors, an increase from 21 recorded in 2009. In a memo to his staff last year, the center’s director cited “a definite increase in sloppy or poor adherence to SOP [standard operating procedure] and handbook procedures.”
In most instances — both locally and nationally — planes came too close but without risk of collision; in some, however, fatal consequences were narrowly averted.
The go-around is seen by controllers as a fairly routine safety procedure that keeps planes out of greater trouble.
In October, Reagan National Airport recorded 39 go-arounds, Dulles International Airport had 20 and Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport had three, according to an internal FAA document. In August, FAA records show at least seven instances in which planes on final approach to National were ordered to go around “due to traffic on the runway.”
That traffic on the runway could be there because a plane that just landed hasn’t moved out of the way quickly enough or, more likely, a plane cleared for takeoff has dawdled on the runway past the time when the controller expected it to be gone.
In 2010, the National Transportation Safety Board took an unprecedented step by beginning to investigate the most serious mistakes by air traffic controllers.
Among the cases under NTSB review are near-collisions between a Boeing 737 and a helicopter in Houston; a Boeing 777 and a small plane in San Francisco; and an Airbus 319 and a Boeing 747 in Anchorage.
Another case under review is an incident last year near National that involved an airliner carrying a congressman. Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) demanded an explanation from the FAA after his United Airlines flight bound for National swerved to avoid another jet after the encounter activated the onboard collision-avoidance system.
Staff writer Nia-Malika Henderson contributed to this report.
The Post Most: LocalMost-viewed stories, videos and galleries int he past two hours
Loading...
Comments