Aviation Officials Clash Over Near Crash
FAA and JFK air traffic controllers clash over details of weekend incident.
July 8, 2008— -- What happened Saturday night at New York's JFK Airport remains a bit of a mystery, but if you take air traffic controllers' word for it, two planes came precariously close to disaster.
On Tuesday, the National Transportation Safety Board announced it was investigating "a near midair collision in New York City." A statement released by the safety board today said two airplanes "almost collided at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, according to initial reports."
A Cayman Airlines flight was landing at the airport as another plane was preparing to leave. The Cayman Airlines flight needed to circle back around after a missed approach, as it was about 300 feet off the ground, but just as that was happening, a Linea Aeroea Navional de Chile flight on a perpendicular runway was beginning to take off, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
The FAA reports that air traffic controllers realized the two flights were heading toward each other and gave orders for them to turn in opposite directions. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association said those orders came "too late" and "the paths of both jets crossed."
Preliminary FAA radar data put the two planes no more than a half mile apart horizontally and 300 feet vertically at their closest proximity.
As air traffic controllers tell it, the situation was dire.
"Controllers at both JFK Tower and New York Tracon all used the word 'ugly' to describe the incident," said NATCA New York-JFK tower facility representative Barrett Byrnes in a statement Monday. "One Tracon controller said it was the ugliest go-around they had seen in 24 years on the job."
NATCA claimed the two planes were approximately 100 feet apart, although preliminary FAA data do not support that estimate.
According to WABC, both airlines issued statements denying the incident occurred as detailed by controllers, and so far no pilot has filed a report.
The NTSB will release a preliminary report on what happened later this week.
Related Stories
ABC News Live