Jets’ Narrow Miss Blamed on FAA Laxity

Government safety officials said Wednesday that the Federal Aviation Administration’s “failure to address and correct” air traffic control deficiencies and problems contributed to a narrow miss between two airliners over Orange County last February.

The National Transportation Safety Board said an investigation of the Coast Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility at the Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro showed that FAA management personnel had verified and documented the problems over the last three years but took no remedial action.

“The FAA’s quality assurance and safety oversight of the (air traffic control) system . . . is inadequate and ineffective,” the safety board concluded.

While not responding specifically to most of these criticisms, the FAA stated Wednesday that it already has undertaken a series of projects designed to correct any problems at Coast TRACON.

The Orange County facility helps direct traffic to and from Los Angeles International, Ontario, John Wayne and Long Beach airports, through some of the most heavily traveled air corridors in the world.

Among the “numerous deficiencies and problems” cited by the board were “inadequate controller staffing, excessive use of overtime . . . and inadequate size and poor physical condition of the operational quarters” at El Toro.

“Specifically, the facility is run down, noise from military jets is a problem, rotary phone equipment is out of date and inadequate and the facility manager questions the health hazards of the environmental control system,” the safety board said. “Controllers have been working scheduled overtime since 1985 (and) six-day workweeks are required 66% of the time.”

During 1988, seven controller errors were committed by Coast TRACON personnel, which worked out to 1.31 errors for every 100,000 flight operations. By comparison, the safety board said, error rates during the same period at other facilities included 0.56 at the Seattle TRACON, 0.56 at Ontario TRACON and 0.17 at Sacramento TRACON.

The board concluded that these safety problems warrant “immediate action and corrective actions by the FAA to prevent a diminished level of safety in the high traffic density of the Southern California basin area.”

Fred Ferrar, an FAA spokesman in Washington, said Wednesday that his agency already has begun a long-range program, “planned and developed over the past several years,” to renovate and modernize the Coast TRACON facility.

Admitting a “significant staffing problem,” which he said was largely a result of the high cost of living in the Orange County area, Ferrar said the FAA has begun a concerted recruitment program to attract controllers.

The National Transportation Safety Board investigation was launched in response to an incident over Westminster about 7:10 p.m. on Feb. 13. Radar data showed that a British Airways Boeing 747 jetliner with 286 on board was climbing out of Los Angeles International, en route to London, when it passed within two miles of an American Airlines BAe-146B jet flying to Ontario at the same altitude with 70 aboard. FAA rules require three miles horizontal separation and 1,000 feet of vertical separation.

A controller at Los Angeles TRACON, which had been tracking the Boeing 747, warned the British Airways pilot that there was other traffic in the area and the pilot made a quick turn to avoid the other plane. Both aircraft continued to their destinations without incident.

The safety board concluded that the narrow miss occurred “because of incomplete and misunderstood coordination between controllers at LAX Center and Coast TRACON and because . . . controllers at Coast TRACON failed to comply with provisions of letters of agreement between Coast TRACON and adjacent facilities.”

The board singled out the Los Angeles controller for praise, commending his “immediate and decisive actions” to warn the 747 pilot.

In contrast, the board noted that the Orange County controller cleared the American Airlines plane into airspace delegated to the Los Angeles facility without properly notifying Los Angeles controllers that he had done so.