Passenger’s Air Safety Crusade Born in Terror of Near Collision

Gregory C. Krug thought he was going to die.

Seated aboard a USAir jet bound for John Wayne Airport, Krug watched in horror as a small plane flew within 300 feet of the airliner and swerved to avoid a collision.

“I was damn near killed and I want somebody to do something about it,” said Krug, an accountant who pilots small planes himself.

Specifically, Krug wants the FAA to admit that a near collision occurred, to discipline the air traffic controller who failed to warn the pilot of the USAir jet, and he wants to talk with the pilot of the small plane to find out why he didn’t file a near-miss report.

The FAA investigated the July 24 incident and acknowledged that the planes were only a few hundred feet apart. But the agency concluded that no one--including air traffic controllers--did anything wrong. Moreover, the incident cannot be labeled a near collision because neither pilot involved filed a report as required by regulations.

“We have met with Mr. Krug,” said Elly Brekke, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration. “We did conduct an investigation. And according to FAA directives and rules of air traffic, we determined that the operation, as conducted, was proper.”

But Krug isn’t satisfied and he has turned the issue into a personal crusade for air safety. He has spent about $2,000 investigating the incident and acquired the FAA’s radar records and audiotapes of pilot-air traffic control conversations to prove that a collision nearly occurred.

He contends the incident illustrates how dangerous the skies are over Southern California, and how the FAA is failing to correct the problem.

“I rent planes when I want to fly, and I don’t even do much of that anymore because it’s just too crazy up there,” he said.

Last year, the National Transportation Safety Board strongly criticized an El Toro-based regional air traffic control facility as inadequate, leading to too many controller errors. What’s more, the General Accounting Office termed the Los Angeles-Orange County airspace as having the worst aircraft-tracking problems in the United States, and Southern California led the nation in the number of reported near collisions.

Moreover, pilots and federal safety officials agree that many near collisions still go unreported, despite a surge credited to heightened awareness since the August, 1986, Cerritos air crash.

Krug fears that neither pilot filed a report in the July 24 incident because they were afraid they would be accused of wrongdoing. In that case, the USAir pilot told the FAA he did not see the close encounter, and the agency has never tried to identify, let alone interview, the pilot of the small plane.

According to Krug’s own account, FAA documents and tapes obtained under the Freedom of Information Act both by Krug and The Times, Krug was sitting in the front row of USAir Flight 2498 as the jetliner descended from an altitude of 20,000 feet to 14,000 feet on its approach to Orange County. The jet was 10 miles west of Los Angeles International Airport, over the ocean, when suddenly a small plane believed to be a northbound Cessna or a Piper, made a quick right turn, apparently to avoid a collision.

“At first I was stunned, and then, when I realized what I had just seen, I was pretty shaken up,” Krug said.

Radar trackings recorded by the FAA show that the small plane came within 300 feet of the USAir jet, something the FAA does not deny, and swerved at the last second.

But the USAir pilot told the FAA and airline officials that he was satisfied nothing further needed to be done about the incident, and so the FAA did not identify or interview the pilot of the small plane.

The audiotapes, meanwhile, show that a few minutes before the close encounter, the pilot of the small plane was warned by an air traffic controller about two planes in his vicinity. One of them was the USAir flight, which was about 10 miles away and traveling on a collision course. A few minutes later, however, the pilot of the small plane again asked for a traffic advisory, apparently unable to see the oncoming jetliner.

“Oh my god!” is heard on the tape, just as the small plane makes a sharp right turn, presumably to avoid the impending collision. It’s unclear, however, whether it was a pilot or an air traffic controller who was speaking, and the FAA refused to identify the controller or make him available to Krug or The Times for an interview.

FAA officials contended that it was the responsibility of the pilot of the small plane to avoid the collision because he was flying under visual, or “see and be seen,” flight rules.

“As far as we’re concerned,” said the FAA’s Brekke, “nobody (including air traffic controllers) did anything wrong. A collision was avoided, so the system worked.”

Krug rejects that conclusion. “Air traffic control has a duty to inform the pilot of a commercial jetliner that there is traffic nearby,” he said. “In this case that didn’t happen.”

Officials at the National Transportation Safety Board, who last year strongly criticized the number of controller errors and near collisions occurring in the skies above Orange County, said they would not challenge the FAA’s handling of the incident.

NTSB investigators said they would be interested only if they suspected that the FAA’s conduct was part of a larger pattern of neglect or refusal to discipline errant controllers, as shown by technical data such as those Krug collected at his own expense.

So far, NTSB officials said, they have seen no such evidence.

Krug is continuing his fight with a search for the pilot of the small plane. “I just want to talk to the guy and find out why he didn’t file a near-miss report,” said Krug. “After all, he’s the guy who nearly cremated me.”

NEAR COLLISION OVER THE PACIFIC OCEAN

A BAE 146 airliner, while descending on approach to Orange County, reportedly missed a small plane by only a few hundred feet. The mid-size jet allegedly passed beneath the small plane’s path.

NOTE: The number in box indicate approximate elevation in feet.