Astronauts Flew Jets Into Near-Collisions, Panel Says

NASA astronauts have flown jets dangerously close to other airplanes at least three times since May of last year, the National Transportation Safety Board reported Tuesday.

The safety board, in a report to NASA Administrator Richard H. Truly, said the space agency’s jet fleet has aged and has substandard communications equipment. The report said the agency should correct the problems “before other dangerous situations are created.”

The board said the three near-collisions were among seven incidents since 1986 in which astronauts flew jets below assigned altitudes.

In the closest encounter, veteran Navy Capt. David M. Walker on May 15, 1989, flew his T-38 jet within 100 feet vertically and 700 feet horizontally of a Pan Am jetliner with 176 people on board.

The Walker incident happened near Dulles International Airport as the space shuttle commander arrived in the Washington area to be congratulated the next day by President Bush for completing a successful mission.

The NASA pilots were not identified in the report. Walker’s involvement was known at the time. He was suspended in July along with Navy Cmdr. Robert L. Gibson, who was being disciplined in an unrelated matter.

Safety board investigator Tim Borson said that during the third quarter of 1990 alone, astronauts flew NASA’s 28 T-38s an average of 843 times a month and that the planes were used for 697 cross-country flights. The T-38 is a high-performance jet capable of flying at 1.6 times the speed of sound.

The safety board was critical of the T-38s and said NASA’s communications equipment was “outdated and far from state of the art.”

It recommended that astronauts fly with an additional crew member when landing or taking off at busy airports and urged that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration instruct its pilots to write down instructions from flight controllers.

All three incidents discussed at a safety board meeting Tuesday could have been averted if a second crew member had been flying in the T-38, the report said.

The safety board also recommended that the equipment on board the jets be modernized to include more safety features. The changes are needed, it said in a letter to Truly, “to reduce the potential for human error.”

Truly called the safety board report “thorough and constructive” and said NASA would consider all of the recommendations.