and the union representing controllers, The Times found. While the lack of controllers is no secret - the Biden administration is seeking funding to hire and train more - the shortages are more severe and are leading to more dangerous situations than previously known.Īs of May, only three of the 313 air traffic facilities nationwide had enough controllers to meet targets set by the F.A.A. airports have not installed warning systems to help prevent collisions on runways.īut the most acute challenge, The Times found, is that the nation’s air traffic control facilities are chronically understaffed. One problem is that despite repeated recommendations from safety authorities, the vast majority of U.S.

The result, they said, was an increasing risk of disaster. Yet that enviable record masks what pilots, air traffic controllers and others say are growing holes in the layers of the safety system - especially as the volume of air travel returns to its levels from before the Covid-19 pandemic. The 14-year streak is the longest in the history of U.S. airline since February 2009, when a Continental flight crashed into a house near Buffalo, killing all 49 people on board. There has not been a fatal crash involving a major U.S. The safety regime, with its built-in redundancies, is known in aviation circles as the Swiss cheese model: If a problem slips through a hole in one layer, it will be caught by another. Technology alerts pilots and controllers to possible dangers and directs them to steer planes away from peril. So do the air traffic controllers who scour the skies and manage takeoffs and landings. aviation network has long been protected by an extensive system of overlapping technological and human safeguards. “Is it going to take people dying for something to move forward?” a controller wrote the same month after barely preventing a midair collision. “This has really opened my eyes to how the next aviation accident may play out,” another pilot wrote to NASA after a close call on a runway in January. (NASA redacts entries’ identifying details, such as the airlines and pilots’ names.) An air traffic controller had cleared the pilot’s flight to land on what looked like “a collision course” with another passenger plane. “Honestly, this stuff scares the crap out of me,” a longtime airline captain, who previously was a carrier fighter pilot, reported to NASA in November. But current and former air traffic controllers said in interviews that close calls were happening so frequently that they feared it was only a matter of time until a deadly crash occurred. air travel system, which transports nearly three million passengers a day, is the safest in the world. The number of such near misses in the NASA database - which is based on voluntary submissions that are not independently corroborated - has more than doubled over the past decade, though it is unclear whether that reflects worsening safety conditions or simply increased reporting.Īviation authorities say that the U.S. The analysis identified a similar phenomenon: In the most recent 12-month period for which data was available, there were about 300 accounts of near collisions involving commercial airlines. records, The Times analyzed a database maintained by NASA that contains confidential safety reports filed by pilots, air traffic controllers and others in aviation. But most, including a close call between two planes in Phoenix four days earlier, have not been disclosed to the public. 11, when a private plane almost landed on top of a Southwest flight. Some have made headlines, including one in San Diego on Aug.

The close calls have involved all major U.S. Mistakes by air traffic controllers - stretched thin by a nationwide staffing shortage - have been one major factor. The incidents often occur at or near airports and are the result of human error, the agency’s internal records show. records, as well as thousands of pages of federal safety reports and interviews with more than 50 current and former pilots, air traffic controllers and federal officials. So far this year, close calls involving commercial airlines have been happening, on average, multiple times a week, according to a Times analysis of internal F.A.A. plane crashes in more than a decade, potentially dangerous incidents are occurring far more frequently than almost anyone realizes - a sign of what many insiders describe as a safety net under mounting stress. They were part of an alarming pattern of safety lapses and near misses in the skies and on the runways of the United States, a Times investigation found.

safety reports but not publicly disclosed - were among a flurry of at least 46 close calls involving commercial airlines last month alone.

The incidents - highlighted in preliminary F.A.A. Vertical height and planes are not shown to scale.

Sky harbor atc tower