Retraining Ordered for Air Controllers

Federal regulators have ordered the retraining of 10,000 air traffic controllers nationwide after two passenger jets came as close as 20 feet from hitting each other over New York’s La Guardia Airport.

The previously unreported April 3 incident, coupled with an increase in controller errors nationwide, prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to order mandatory proficiency training for controllers working in airport towers handling takeoffs and landings, said Ronald E. Morgan, the FAA’s acting associate administrator for air traffic services.

Investigators said their probe has convinced them that it was nearly a miracle that the two jets did not collide. An Air Canada Airbus A320 jet, taking off from La Guardia, flashed directly over a US Airways DC-9 jet as it broke off a landing attempt.

Federal officials for weeks were unaware of the seriousness of the near-collision because La Guardia tower personnel failed to report it and a complaint by a pilot in one of the jets was lost in a bureaucratic mix-up at a regional FAA office. Details of the incident emerged internally over several weeks only after passengers on the planes complained, the FAA said.

A tower supervisor was removed from duty but has since been reinstated after training.

The National Transportation Safety Board has launched an investigation of the incident.

A May 12 memo to all regional air traffic managers, made available at the request of the Washington Post, ordered a minimum of two hours of training for controllers who are certified--or doing on-the-job training--in the “local controller” position in airport towers, with emphasis on rules regarding control of aircraft in the immediate airport area and on the ground. The training must also include local practices and procedures, which may have been violated at La Guardia.

The incident took place in clear weather when a local controller cleared the Air Canada plane to take off to the northwest on Runway 31 while the US Airways plane was approaching from the east to land on Runway 22.

Morgan said the controller realized that the two planes would come too close to each other and ordered the US Airways plane to abort its landing when it was about half a mile from the end of the runway. “A review of the incident showed that the local controller waited too long to make the decision to issue the go-around instruction,” Morgan said in the memo to regional managers.

The Air Canada plane, lightly loaded and taking off into a brisk head wind, became airborne much more quickly than normal and climbed rapidly. The US Airways plane, whose crew had not been advised that the Air Canada plane was taking off, began climbing about 200 feet off the ground. As the controller who had cleared the Air Canada plane for takeoff watched, the US Airways jet passed directly under the Air Canada plane at the point where the two runways intersect.