FAA: 3 jets never on collision course

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

None of the commuter jets that flew too close together near Washington on Tuesday was ever on course to collide head-on with the others, federal officials said Thursday.

At a news conference, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood strongly disputed media reports characterizing what happened near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport as a near-miss.

“At no point were the three aircraft on a head-to-head course. They were not on a collision course,” said Michael Huerta, administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration.

The FAA said in a statement it “is investigating the incident and will take appropriate action to address the miscommunication.” The National Transportation Safety Board said it, too, is investigating.

The jet problem occurred Tuesday after a miscommunication between a manager at Potomac Consolidated Terminal Radar Approach Control and two traffic management coordinators at the airport, Huerta said. The exact nature of the miscommunication was not clear, but there was apparently a failure on both ends to follow standard procedure.

Air-traffic controllers at the time had been changing the direction planes were landing and taking off at the airport because of bad weather. Controllers cleared two outbound flights to head in the direction of an incoming plane.

Both LaHood and Huerta praised the work of air traffic controllers to quickly set the US Airways-operated commuter planes on another path once they learned they were too close together. Huerta said the planes were on different headings at different altitudes and thus never would have crashed.