Near-collision of two planes in Austin at the center of NTSB hearing

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board said at a hearing on last year’s incident at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport that inadequate training and a lack of critical safety technology also played a role. Had modern technology been installed at the airport, it could have helped air traffic controllers track the position of traffic, especially in conditions of limited visibility, as was the case the day of the incident, the agency said.

“Two aircraft came within 200 feet of each other, and that should not have happened,” said board member Michael Graham. “I’m glad we’re talking about a near-collision today. It could have turned out differently, and we could be talking about a tragedy.”

The Feb. 4, 2023, incident in Austin was one of more than a half-dozen serious incidents that caught the attention of federal regulators and prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to convene a safety summit to understand the sudden increase in what are known in the industry as runway incursions. At least six of the most serious incidents occurred in the first two months of 2023.

Details of the Austin horror reveal how close the two planes came to colliding in the early hours of that foggy day. Investigators said the FedEx crew was preparing to land when the first officer spotted the Southwest Airlines passenger plane below.

In response, the FedEx pilots pulled up and circled the jet to avoid it. Investigators said the belly of the FedEx jet was less than 200 feet from the tail of the Southwest Airlines plane. Although no one was injured, the Federal Aviation Administration classified the incident as a Category A, the most serious on its rating scale.

The air traffic controller told investigators that in his experience, Southwest pilots tend to move quickly, so he thought the flight had enough time to take off before the FedEx plane landed. But when he didn’t hear the 737’s engines revving to indicate the plane was taking off, he realized something was wrong. Investigators said visibility on the ground was limited and that when the FedEx cargo jet descended below 800 feet, it no longer appeared on radar, so the air traffic controller may have lost track of where the planes were.

As part of its final report, due to be released in a few weeks, the NTSB will make seven recommendations to the FAA, including improving communication between pilots and air traffic controllers and requiring initial and refresher training for air traffic controllers on how to manage airport operations in reduced visibility.

Panel members also reiterated their call for the FAA to speed up the installation of collision avoidance technology, a recommendation they made more than 20 years ago. While many U.S. airports have technology that warns air traffic controllers of potential collisions, Austin did not. NTSB members also called for aircraft to be equipped with similar warning systems.

NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said agencies too often base their cost-benefit analyses on risk assessments of accidents that resulted in serious injuries or deaths. She said agencies like the FAA need to be more proactive about safety.

“The FAA needs to be able to figure out how to address the risk based on what could have happened, not just based on this tombstone mentality, as my old boss always called it. We can’t act after the fact, when people have died,” she said.

In response to the spike in incidents, FAA officials launched an internal review of safety data and convened a safety summit for March 2023. The NTSB convened a separate meeting on the issue in May and launched investigations into seven of the most serious incidents, including the one in Austin.

But the issue remained a top concern for lawmakers. At a hearing in November, Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, chair of the Senate Aviation Commerce Committee, said such incidents were a sign of an overburdened system.

The FAA said in a statement that it recognizes the NTSB’s important role in improving safety and will carefully review its recommendations. The agency noted that the rate of serious runway injuries decreased 59 percent in the first three months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, from 0.56 per 1 million airport operations to 0.23 per 1 million operations.

Although the number of serious incidents appears to be declining, two near-misses at Reagan National Airport several weeks apart underscore that near-misses at airports remain a concern.