Federal aviation officials said two planes at the Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington and Chicago Midway International Airport were forced to stop landings to avoid collisions within 90 minutes Tuesday morning.
American Airlines flight 2246 arrived at the National Airport from Boston, and achieved its final drop at around 8:20 a.m. when it suddenly canceled its landing, climbed into the sky and accelerated from the airport. The last-minute move allowed it to avoid collisions with another aircraft ready to take off from the same runway, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
The aircraft’s pilots were told to abolish the air traffic controller’s landing site to “ensure separation between the aircraft and separation between predecessors on the same runway,” the FAA said in a statement.
Around central time, pilots of Southwest Airlines flight 2504 from Omaha canceled their plane’s landing in Chicago after “an unauthorized entry of a business jet into the runway”, the FAA said in a statement. .
The close misstep Tuesday morning continued to draw attention, which drew attention to the safety of U.S. airspace after a fatal air crash outside the national airport last month. On January 29, American Airlines Flight 5342 and an Army Blackhawk helicopter collided above the Potomac River, killing 67 people on both planes.
Investigators have not yet determined the cause of the January 29 crash.
Itai Vardi said Tuesday that he was a passenger of American Airlines 2246 and he was on his flight to the national airport due to a recent crash.
Mr. Vardy, who lives in Boston, said he felt relieved when his flight seemed less than a minute to land as he watched the plane get closer and closer to the runway from the window seat.
Then, without warning, the plane made a sharp and rapid rise from the ground, overwhelming him, worried about wondering what happened and how to end.
“Obviously, due to the crash, I wondered if I should have looked for a helicopter and then it happened all of a sudden,” Mr. Vardy said in an interview. “Nothing progressive. It feels like the pilot has to do emergency maneuvers.”
The plane eventually landed safely at the national airport. No one was injured.
American Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the incident.
The National Transportation Safety Commission is investigating the Chicago Midway incident.
“The crew followed safety procedures and landed without any incidents,” Southwest said in a statement confirming the incident.
Trying to browse the agency’s turmoil this year, close to mistakes and deadly plane crashes have plagued the FAA. Recently, about 400 employees were recently fired as air traffic controllers were exempted from layoffs, as part of a federal restructuring under President Trump.
The crash at a national airport last month was the deadliest crash in the United States since the Colgen Air flight in 2009. Further adding to the FAA’s recent struggle, there are two other fatal crashes – one in Philadelphia and another in Alaska – the crash – that took place within 10 days of the Washington crash.
A series of recent aviation disasters have attracted the attention of the Trump administration, which vows to overhaul the FAA’s air traffic control system. Mr. Trump had previously said he would discuss with Congress a bill to modify the country’s aviation safety infrastructure.
Transport Secretary Sean Duffy recruited Elon Musk’s aerospace company, SpaceX and Mr. Musk’s so-called government efficiency ministry to help with the effort. SpaceX employees have visited the FAA’s Virginia Airlift Command Center.
