Deadly midair collision renews urgent questions about near-misses, air safety

Show Caption

A deadly midair collision between a passenger jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter Wednesday was the first major fatal plane crash in the U.S. since 2009. The crash occurred as an American Airlines flight, operated by its regional affiliate PSA, from Wichita, Kansas, approached Virginia’s Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

There have been several near-misses and other close calls around the country in recent years that concerned experts and officials. 

“As air travel demand grows, more and more aircraft are in the sky, more and more helicopters are in the sky, and it creates a more congested and more complex control environment, especially near major hubs but also en route, and that just creates greater challenges,” Robert W. Mann Jr., a former airline executive officer and current president of R. W. Mann and Co., an independent airline consultancy, told Paste BN. “The complexity of traffic and the density of traffic in terminal areas of large airports – that’s  what’s driving an increasing number of incursions, runway incursions, taxiways incursions, incidents of aircraft damage on the ground, and in some cases, real tragedies.” 

Recent high-profile close calls at US airports 

◾ January 2023: Delta Air Lines and American Airlines planes nearly collided at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. 

◾ February 2023: A Southwest Airlines aircraft and FedEx cargo plane came within 100 feet of each other at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. 

◾ February 2023: There was another close call between a JetBlue flight preparing to land at Boston Logan International Airport and a Learjet that took off without clearance. 

◾ April 2024: JetBlue and Southwest planes were cleared on a collision path at Washington National before air traffic controllers warned them to stop. 

◾ May 2024: An American Airlines plane ceased takeoff at Washington National after another aircraft was cleared to land on an intersecting runway.

◾ January: Delta and United Airlines planes experienced "a loss of required separation" while heading to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport earlier this month, the Federal Aviation Administration said, but both landed safely.

How common are close calls? 

Not all of the close calls have been midair collisions that were narrowly avoided. Many were runway incursions, which involve “the incorrect presence of an aircraft, vehicle or person on the protected area of a surface designated for the landing and take off of aircraft,” the FAA said on its website. 

Then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told Paste BN in March 2023 that the incidents had been caused by multiple factors, including controller training and pilot error. "It's enough that I'm concerned,” he said at the time. 

In August of that year, FAA data showed that the rate of runway incursions had increased almost 25% from a decade earlier, The New York Times reported. The trend had shown improvement since 2018, however.

U.S. officials have taken steps to address the issue, from investing in airport runway lighting to enhancing controller training with modernized simulators. The rest period for controllers was also raised from nine hours to 10 between shifts, with at least 12 hours of rest before midnight shifts. 

"We have a shortage of air traffic controllers in this country right now, as well as more money for pilot training," Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., said in a Thursday press briefing. "Unfortunately, you know, this is the kind of federal grant that President Trump is trying to freeze funding for right now. So this is not the time to stop the funding that is desperately needed to train and equip airports, especially at the busiest airspaces, like the one at DCA."

There were 30 runway incursions for every 1 million takeoffs and landings in 2024, down from 33 the year prior and 32 in 2022, according to the FAA. “In the first three months of 2024, the rate of serious incidents (Category A and B) decreased by 59% from the same period in 2023, from 0.56 per one million airport operations to 0.23 per one million operations,” the agency said. 

The rate has fluctuated over the past decade, peaking at 35 incursions per 1 million takeoffs and landings in 2017 and 2018 and a low of 28 in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

While experts say the aviation system remains largely safe, they agree that it’s incumbent upon regulators and the industry as a whole to remain vigilant and do everything in their power to continually improve that record. 

“It’s very clear that the amount of (fight) activity continues to increase ... The risk here is, and as I always used to discuss with my people, is the safety culture, the training, maintenance, the overall perception of safety.” Mann said. “It's a very safe system. It can always be safer. That’s up to every operator, every person operating in that system, and that’s up to the regulators who oversee it.”