O.C. Airport Ranks 7th in Midair Near Misses

Federal officials reported Monday that John Wayne Airport ranks seventh in the nation in near midair collisions involving commercial airliners over the last three years.

The disclosure came only hours after the airport’s lastest near-tragedy, in which a United Express twin-engine turboprop with 18 people aboard passed within 200 feet of a small plane over Seal Beach on Sunday night.

Sunday’s incident was the second near collision this summer between small planes and commercial airliners over Orange County.

In their report Monday, officials with the General Accounting Office said the Santa Ana-El Toro area--the John Wayne Airport corridor--had 20 near misses from 1986 through 1988, more than any other airport in the West except Los Angeles and San Francisco International airports.

Los Angeles International led the nation, reporting nearly twice as many such incidents as the second-ranking airport on the list, according to the GAO report.

The data reflects what aviation experts and pilots have known for some time--Southern California skies are the most congested in the United States. There are an estimated 12,200 licensed pilots--commercial and general aviation--in Orange County, and 27,000 in Los Angeles County.

“There is an increasing awareness to report near misses, especially after the Cerritos tragedy,” said Los Angeles FAA spokeswoman Barbara Abel, referring to the 1986 midair collision in which a small private plane slammed into the tail section of an Aeromexico DC-9, killing 82 persons.

“John Wayne was the fifth busiest airport, so the number of near misses doesn’t seem to be above what’s happening in other areas,” said Don Miller, a general aviation pilot and vice president of the Orange County Airport Assn.

The airport handled 533,484 takeoffs and landings in 1988, compared to 623,519 at LAX.

The FAA’s Coast Terminal Radar Approach Control Center, or TRACON, in El Toro 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. The John Wayne tower directs arriving and departing traffic within a five-mile radius of the airport.

James H. Panter, air traffic manager at Coast TRACON, said he could not comment on the GAO report because he hasn’t seen it and because he lacks perspective, since he joined the El Toro staff only this year.

Referring to near collisions generally, however, Panter said that such statistics are often misleading because they are based on pilot sightings, which can be influenced by a number of factors, including the numbers of flights taking place, flying conditions and the inclination of pilots to report incidents.

Pilots Not Always Agreed

“Not all near misses would have resulted in collisions,” Panter said. “In some cases, one of the two pilots sees the other so he doesn’t consider it a near miss, but the second pilot does, so he files a report. A lot of this happens at night, where if a plane has its landing lights on, it can appear to be too close even if it’s five or six miles away.”

Joe Fowler, manager of the FAA tower at John Wayne Airport, could not be reached for comment.

According to the GAO statistics, there were 57 near collisions in the crowded LAX airspace in 1986-1988, compared to 29 incidents each in Chicago, San Francisco and New York.

The GAO investigation also revealed that two other Southern California airports in addition to John Wayne--Ontario and Burbank--were among the top 12 in the nation in near-miss incidents.

Ontario was ranked ninth and Burbank 12th.

Of the 712 near midair collisions reported nationally last year, 326 involved commercial carriers, of which 231 were defined as serious. That was down substantially from 1987, when 1,058 near midair collisions were reported, 489 of which involved commercial planes and 354 of which were considered serious.

The GAO reported 2,610 near midair collisions in the three-year period, with 1,158 of them involving commercial airliners and 834 deemed serious.

“We’ve got work to do to improve the margin of safety in the skies,” said Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who requested the report.

The FAA’s Abel, without providing figures, said the GAO statistics are misleading because reports of near misses since 1987 have declined both nationwide and in Southern California, although she said it is true that LAX led the nation.

Planes 200 Feet Apart

But the congestion in Southern California was illustrated yet again Sunday about 11:47 p.m. when United Express Flight 3542 from Stockton reported passing within 200 feet of an unidentified Cherokee as it approached John Wayne Airport. The incident occurred at about 6,000 feet in the vicinity of Seal Beach, FAA officials said. The airliner carried 15 passengers, two pilots and a flight attendant.

“The (United Express) pilot had just received clearance to descend when he sighted the Cherokee,” said United Express spokesman Mark Peterson. “He took evasive action to safely get around the smaller aircraft. The flight continued without incident, and the crew notified air traffic control that the situation had occurred.”

Peterson added: “The crew expressed concern about it.”

The United Express plane was in voice communication at the time with the Coast TRACON center.

However, Coast TRACON manager Panter said controllers never saw the smaller Cherokee, so no advisory was issued to the United Express pilot to change course.

A contributing factor, he said, was that the Cherokee apparently did not have a transponder, a device that allows radar scopes to record altitude and speed information immediately next to a plane’s radar blip.

The pilot of the Cherokee did not report Sunday night’s near miss and has not been identified, FAA officials said.

Meanwhile on Monday, the GAO issued a companion report investigating reasons for dangerous conditions in the skies, and cited an instance where a radar approach control station’s computer screens--overloaded with information on aircraft altitude, speed and direction--flickered or blacked out for 16 minutes during peak afternoon hours.

Screens Black Out

Los Angeles, Burbank, Santa Ana and Ontario stations, which guide planes when they fly outside major airport control zones, reported that their screens black out, flicker or respond slowly when the computers reach capacity.

“This points to the fact that there is an erosion of controller confidence in the equipment,” said Tony Dresden, spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn.

FAA officials confirmed the findings of the GAO reports and said the agency has “a number of programs under way to correct this problem.”

The computer-overload problem was unlike last Sunday’s incident at the El Toro radar facility, however, when a computer’s memory units failed, intermittently blacking out altitude, identity and speed information about airplanes still visible on controllers’ radar scopes.

Coast TRACON has been under fire in recent months for committing several operational errors, including one on Feb. 13 when two jetliners came within seconds of colliding over Westminster.

The John Wayne tower handled a near collision three weeks ago in which the pilot of a small plane failed to respond accurately to an air traffic controller’s tape recorded instructions and almost hit a jetliner that had just taken off from the airport.

In May, the National Transportation Safety Board criticized the FAA’s failure to “address and correct” air traffic control deficiencies at Coast TRACON, citing “inadequate controller staffing, excessive use of overtime . . . and inadequate size and poor physical condition of the operational quarters.”

The NTSB also criticized the facility as “run down,” with noise and exhaust fumes from military jets” also contributing to problems. Although civilian-operated, Coast TRACON is located at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

However, a visit to the facility last week by a Times reporter indicated that crew morale was high, with complaints focusing primarily on the amount of mandatory overtime due to staffing shortages.

During the visit, Panter criticized the NTSB study of Coast TRACON for not giving the facility credit for taking corrective measures even before the study was made.

For example, the NTSB had urged the FAA not to pursue a planned expansion of the workload at Coast TRACON until more controllers could be trained. In order to keep the current workload more manageable, the FAA postponed enforcement of a new air-safety zone around John Wayne Airport until later this year.

Miller, the Orange County Airport Assn. executive who heads the group’s safety committee, said that Monday’s GAO reports highlight the FAA’s need for a much bigger staff at Coast TRACON and additional computer equipment before the new air-safety zone, known as an Airport Radar Service Area, takes effect.

“They aren’t prepared for it now,” Miller said. “If they try to implement the new ARSA, it will be a disaster waiting to happen.”

Panter, the FAA chief at Coast TRACON, has said the new service area will not be implemented without sufficient staff.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Lori Silver, reporting from Washington, Jeffrey A. Perlman from Costa Mesa and George Ramos from Los Angeles.