Earlier this week, I wrote about the continuing federal government shutdown and more to the point, the affect the shutdown is having on our air traffic controllers an on air travel within our country in general. I got a few emails saying that I’m “paranoid,” and as one person whose email address traced back to Holland, making his opinion useless, put it: “nothing’s going to happen, man.” Yeah? Well, it almost did!
On Thursday, a near-miss incident occurred at Boston’s famed Logan Airport, the same airport that let terrorists onto planes that would later be used as missiles on September 11, 2001. Clearly, safety means nothing to those who run the airport. The incident involved Delta Airlines Flight 263 and Cape Air Flight 548.
Flight 548 was cleared for takeoff when Flight 263, flying from Paris into JFK, when it was sent to Logan due to weather, apparently disregarded instructions and safety and taxied down an intersecting runway. Air traffic controllers ordered Flight 263 to abort its takeoff and climb to 3000 feet, requiring it to start all over again.
Things were so close that the flights came within a few thousand feet of each other. That may sound like something small, but it was a big deal that could have killed or injured hundreds of people on board both of the planes. Already, air traffic controllers are being investigated for potentially causing the problem in the first place.
If ATC personnel were overworked, then what I wrote about on Wednesday was accurate. Sooner or later, given that controllers are calling out to the point that 80% 0f the controllers in the New York City are not working, people are going to pay with their lives. That could have happened this week. There have been numerous cases in the past of passengers dying when planes collided on intersecting runways.
So what did cause this week’s near miss? The FAA and the NTSB are investigation, but it is reasonable to suspect that the current shortage of controllers played a role in it. But then again, how is it that two pilots both missed seeing each other in the first place?
True, ATC is supposed to monitor the runways and they likely will bear most of the responsibility here, but the pilots should absolutely be proactive, especially since they know the towers are running light on staff.
Fortunately, no one died. But things could have gone a lot worse and to be honest, I think we’ll soon see a news story pop up reporting on a collision between airplanes, bringing death front and center. You can listen to the audio by clicking onto this page. It will be at the top of the page as of the time this article was published. If you can’t find it, use your browser’s search function and use “close call” as the keyword.
If it is found that air traffic controllers were in any way involved in the incident, it will be proof that people will die during this government shutdown.
I stand by what I wrote this week: air travel is simply not safe at this point in time. Realistically, flying in general is unsafe because things like this happen all the time. But especially now, flying is a stupid thing to do here in the United States.