Both FAA and The National Transportation Safety Board are investigating different safety problems involving regional aircraft including yet another runway incursion as well as near mid air collisions (NMAC) in New York/New Jersey airspace. The incidents came shortly before a massive computer glitch which stalled eastern traffic for hours recently.
The FAA is investigating pilot reports about five near midairs during May including two involving JetBlue (JBLU) and Continental (CAL) aircraft, a Continental Express flight and an American Eagle aircraft. A NMAC is two planes flying less than 500 feet apart.
On May 5, at 3 p.m. Continental Express Embraer (ERJ) 145 flight 2009, reported coming within 300 feet vertically and zero miles horizontally with a glider 20 miles north of Sparta, NJ at an altitude of 7,000 feet. On May 17, at Kennedy Airport, American Eagle Flight 392 was taking off from runway 13R and reported coming within 200 feet of a helicopter taking off from a helipad to the east of the runway.
The Continental Airlines NMAC occurred on an inbound flight to Newark on May 21 when it reported coming within 200 feet vertically and 1.5 miles horizontally with an unidentified aircraft at 6,000 feet over Robbinsville, NJ. The Continental pilot took evasive action in response to a TCAS alarm.
The JetBlue incidents occurred on May 1 and May 9 near Stewart Airport in New York and EWR, respectively. In the first incident the aircraft came within 800 feet vertically and 30 feet horizontally of an unidentified aircraft at an altitude of 3,000 feet. In the second incident, JetBlue was climbing to an altitude of 12,000 feet when it came within 500 feet vertically and 2.5 miles horizontally of an unidentified aircraft at an altitude of 11,500 feet.
Runway Incursion
The NTSB is investigating another regional-airline related runway incursion, this one at San Francisco when SkyWest (SKYW) and Republic (RJET) airlines aircraft narrowly missed each other. The incident comes shortly after the DOT Office of Inspector General criticized progress on eliminating runway incursions. Related Story
The incident prompted the Republic's ERJ-170 captain to grab control of the departing aircraft from the first officer and immediately take off earlier than planned. The captain realized the aircraft was traveling too fast to stop and immediately pulled up, narrowly avoiding the SkyWest Brasilia. There were no injuries to the 27 people on board the two planes, the board said.
At about 1:30 p.m. on May 26, air traffic control cleared SkyWest Flight 5741, arriving from Modesto, Calif., to land on runway 28R. Forgetting about the arrival airplane, according to the Board, the same controller then cleared Republic Flight 4912, an Embraer 170 departing for Los Angeles, to take off from runway 1L, which intersects runway 28R.
After the SkyWest airliner touched down, the Airport Movement Area Safety System (AMASS) alerted and the air traffic controller transmitted "Hold, Hold, Hold" to the SkyWest flight crew who applied maximum braking that resulted in the airplane stopping in the middle of runway 1L at the intersection of runways 1-Left and 28-Right.
According to the crew of SkyWest 5741, the Republic Airlines aircraft over flew theirs by 30 to 50 feet. The Federal Aviation Administration has categorized the incident as an operational error. The AMASS system, which had a modification in February to provide conflict alerts between aircraft using intersecting runways, provides an alert 15 seconds before the aircraft "reach the conflict point, and the system performed as designed," the report said.