Near-Collision With Light Plane Forces 747 to Swerve

A jumbo jetliner approaching Los Angeles International Airport with 386 passengers on board had to swerve at the last moment to avoid a light plane less than 500 feet away, a federal aviation official said this morning.

A flight attendant and a passenger suffered minor injuries--a bruised arm and a small cut on the hand--when the Air New Zealand jetliner dived suddenly to the left Sunday night to avoid the unidentified plane about 20 miles east of Santa Catalina Island, according to the official and an airline spokeswoman.

The Boeing 747 swerved out of the way after twice receiving a warning from air traffic controllers that there appeared to be “conflicting traffic” in the area, according to Gary Mucho, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board office in Los Angeles.

Mucho said the Air New Zealand pilot reported that the light plane--believed to be a twin-engine Cessna--also took evasive action.

The NTSB investigator said his office will study radar tape recordings in an attempt to identify the light plane by determining where it went after the incident.

“But that could be very difficult,” Mucho said. “There were a lot of planes out there.”

Diane Anderson, a spokeswoman for the airline, said Air New Zealand’s Flight 6 took off from Papeete, Tahiti, at 5:25 a.m. local time Sunday on the last leg of a journey that had begun the night before in Auckland, New Zealand.

Mucho said the jet was descending through 7,000 feet on its final approach to LAX about 5:15 p.m. Los Angeles time when controllers at the Coast Terminal Radar Approach Control facility in Orange County advised the pilot twice--in rapid succession--that another plane was approaching, “nose to nose,” on a collision course.

“When they spotted the other plane, they took evasive action . . . and then went on in and landed,” Mucho said. “The two minor injuries were treated and released.”

Mucho said the incident apparently took place outside the restricted airspace of the Terminal Control Area that surrounds LAX. That means that the light plane probably was not required to be under the guidance of air traffic controllers.

Under such circumstances, it would be up to the pilots to “see and avoid” one another, with the pilot of the jetliner--which was operating under FAA guidance--receiving the benefit of advisories from air traffic controllers.