Three Such Incidents In Less Than A Week

On the heels of two close calls on the runways of Chicago's O'Hare International Airport last week, comes word of a third such incident.

This time, it happened on Sunday... when an Airbus A320 was cleared for take-off at about the same time another aircraft was cleared to roll on an intersecting runway. The Airbus was ordered to abort four seconds after it was cleared to go.

FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro told USA Today the two planes never came less than within 1,100 feet of each other, although the agency is checking to see if federal separation rules were violated.

This latest ground bungle at O'Hare comes as federal investigators are still looking into two similar events that happened last week.

On March 21st, a Lufthansa aircraft and a Delta jet were cleared to roll on intersecting runways at the same time. They came within 100 feet of each other before the flight crews caught on and aborted. The FAA says that was the closest near-miss at a major US airport in years.

Then, just two days later... a United Airlines flight and a Ted aircraft almost collided when one was cleared to cross the active as the other was on its takeoff roll.

That makes seven runway incursions at O'Hare since the first of the year... the same number of incursions at the airport in all of 2005. Controller error was cited in the other four incidents that happened earlier this year.

The situation is considered so serious that both the FAA and the NTSB are investigating.

FMI: www.faa.gov, www.ntsb.gov