Similar Incident Occurred In December
The FAA is investigating an alleged air traffic control error
that put two planes landing at Newark Liberty International Airport
closer than federal guidelines allow. The incident occurred at
2:10pm last Wednesday, and involved Continental Flight 536, a
Boeing 737 arriving from Phoenix, and Continental Express Flight
2614, an Embraer 145 arriving from Halifax, Nova Scotia, the
Associated Press reports.
According to FAA spokesman Jim Peters, the error occurred at the
New York Terminal Radar Approach Center (TRACON) on Long Island,
which controls flights descending into New York metropolitan
airports before turning them over to the airport tower controllers.
An air traffic controller at the TRACON mistakenly gave the
Continental Express crew the wrong tower frequency, giving them
nearby Teterboro instead of Newark, Peters said.
"We're investigating it as an operational error," he said. As a
result, the Newark tower was temporarily unable to contact the crew
as both planes approached Newark. At one point, the planes had
1-1/4 mile horizontal and 600 feet vertical separation, rather than
the three mile horizontal and 1000 feet vertical separation as
required by the FAA.
Both flights landed safely and arrived at the gate about 15
minutes apart, according to Continental.
"This was a very difficult and dangerous situation," said Ray
Adams, vice president of the air traffic controllers union at the
Newark airport. Adams rejected the FAA's preliminary conclusion and
instead attributed the incident to the FAA's procedures for
landings at Newark.
"We're disputing the fact that the controller made an error,"
said Adams.
"This is a concern because of fatigue. We have less people
working, which means we are going to have more people working
positions longer and traffic longer," said NATCA spokesman Dan
Horwitz. This is the second recent incident at Newark investigated
by the FAA.
As ANN previously reported, there have been an increasing number
of such near-miss incidents in the greater New York area over the
last year. According to the National Air Traffic Controller's
Association, 1,000 controllers have left the field In the last two
years, leaving those who remain fatigued, shorthanded and more
susceptible to operational error.
In December, an aircraft landing on one runway had to maneuver
to avoid another aircraft that taxied into its approach path
while preparing to takeoff from a separate runway.