When an American Airlines crew declared an emergency last year, and controllers denied the pilot's request to land against traffic at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), they were instead re-routed for a finals intercept for another runway that took a lot longer. It was August 30, 2006 and the pilot of Flight 489 had declared an emergency after his fuel gauges suddenly indicated the plane was running low on fuel. The captain requested permission to land on the nearest runway he could reach at DFW. That runway was 17-Center; but airport traffic was taking off and landing to the north.

The air traffic controller was ordered by his supervisor not to disrupt the traffic flow at DFW, and he told the emergency pilot to land on Runway 31-right. The 757 had to fly much further south to enter the pattern. Even though maintenance crews later found the low-fuel reading was caused by a faulty fuel sensor's transmitter unit, the FAA agrees that the AA Captain's declaration of an emergency should have made him priority number ONE. On 25 Jan 1990 an Avianca 707 (Flt 052) was similarly re-routed back out for a lengthy approach to JFK and ended up crashing short, totally out of gas - and 73 out of the 158 onboard were killed. In that instance the crew was remiss in not urgently and clearly conveying their dire straits to ATC. Language, underconfidence and comprehension was part of the problem then.... but not so in the AA incident.

"Our pilots have to feel comfortable that they'll receive appropriate help if they ever encounter an emergency such as this one," said John Hotard of AA. "It is a serious matter because the pilots didn't know what the situation was at the time when they declared the fuel emergency."

Mike Conely, president of the local chapter of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, laid blame for the August 30 incident squarely on the FAA supervisor who denied the emergency landing request. The FAA says that the controllers at DFW have been re-trained following the incident.