Securing America: Avoiding Mid-Air Collisions

AIRPLANE

After a string of near misses, the National Transportation Safety Board is urging a change in air traffic control procedures.

FOX News Radio’s Lisa Brady has more in our ongoing series on national security:

Securing America.

Especially concerned about near collisions involving airliners that aborted landings, the NTSB is suggesting that when two planes are departing at once, air traffic controllers shouldn’t clear another plane to land, if it would create a collision risk for that landing plane to abort and go around for another landing attempt. The NTSB says that was the scenario in five near collisions: in Vegas, New York and Charlotte; four of them just last year, including one incident when a Spirit Airlines airbus and a Cessna light jet came within 1000 feet of each other, before the smaller plane veered away. The NTSB’s call to modify procedures, comes in a letter to the FAA.

Lisa Brady, FOX News Radio.