Error in nation's air-traffic control up only slightly

WASHINGTON -- The number of air-traffic-control errors barely increased last year, although controllers fell under scrutiny and ridicule because some were caught sleeping on the job.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday that there were 1,895 incidents last year in which planes flew too close to each other or other air-traffic guidelines were broken.

That means more than 99% of the system's 133 million operations went off without a hitch, the FAA says.

The errors added up to just eight more than in 2010, although higher than the 1,234 reported in 2009. That year-to-year jump coincided with different reporting rules that encouraged controllers to voluntarily report incidents without fear of reprisals.

Last year, there were at least six instances of controllers sleeping or being unresponsive in the control tower from February to April. None of the incidents came close to triggering an accident, but two jetliners landed at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport while a controller slept just after midnight March 23, 2011.

In a high-profile instance, first lady Michelle Obama's plane had to abort a landing April 18 at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland after getting too close to an Air Force C-17 landing ahead of it. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the incident.

The FAA says travelers shouldn't be alarmed, despite the slight rise in errors. In fact, the number of air-traffic errors reported is likely to rise again this year. The FAA has begun automatically collecting radar data about when planes come too close together within 40 miles of an airport, an expansion of the area in which traffic is being monitored.

David Grizzle, FAA's chief operating officer, says the numbers will go up, but that steps in place to improve safety — such as adding more explicit instructions between controllers and pilots, and phrasing instructions more clearly — are being put in place.

In addition, the FAA in January started requiring eight hours of re-training for all controllers every six months.

"At the same time that reporting is going up, risk will be going down," Grizzle says.

Bill Voss, a former controller who is president of the Flight Safety Foundation, says passengers shouldn't panic as numbers rise this year. He says the FAA is improving safety after taking the public-relations hit of identifying errors. "It may be an alarming jump; however, I would not recommend being alarmed," Voss says.

Among other close calls last year:

•In Gulfport, Miss., on June 19, a regional ExpressJet and a Cessna 172 came within 300 feet of each other when both were cleared for takeoff within 16 seconds.

•At Chicago's O'Hare Airport on May 16, two regional jets nearly crossed paths as an ExpressJet prepared to take off and a SkyWest plane prepared to land.

•At New York's Kennedy Airport on Jan. 20, an American Airlines jet took off too close to a pair of Air Force C-17s already in the air.

On Wednesday, the FAA extended its labor contract with controllers to July 2016. Controllers will get whatever salary increases other federal employees receive and keep the same work rules.