Collision Alarms Sound As Skydiving Plane Comes Too Close To Airliner

The Federal Aviation Administration is looking into a weekend incident in the skies over Chicago, where an American Airlines MD-83 (file photo of type, below) and a skydiving plane came a little too close to one another.

A collision-avoidance alarm sounded in the cockpit of AA Flight 1884 Sunday morning as it approached O'Hare Airport. FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro said the airliner was over Ottawa at 16,000 feet at the time, when it received the alert for an aircraft at 14,500 feet, and four miles out.

The Chicago Sun-Times says Molinaro wasn't certain if the American Airlines jet had to take any evasive action in the incident. An online flight tracking program, however, shows a definite "jog" in the plane's flight path near Ottawa, which is southwest of Chicago.

(Graphic courtesy of FlightAware.com)

The FAA will review an airline incident report, radar data, and cockpit and air traffic control recordings to determine what happened.

An American spokeswoman had no comment on the incident, referring all inquiries to the FAA.

FMI: www.aa.com, www.faa.gov