Name: String of airplane mishaps prompts safety concerns
Uploaded: 2025-02-27T04:21:10.286Z
Duration: 3 min
Description: From runway incursions to near-misses to fatal crashes, recent events have raised concerns about air travel safety systems.

From runway incursions to near-misses to fatal crashes, recent events have raised concerns about air travel safety systems.

Chicago

A recent series of airplane mishaps is raising concerns about air travel safety. A Southwest Airlines aircraft narrowly avoided a collision with a private plane at Chicago's Midway International Airport, veering off to avoid a runway crossing. Shortly thereafter, an American Airlines jet at Washington's Reagan National Airport aborted a landing to evade a potential runway conflict.

These incidents are not isolated, as February saw a Delta Airlines plane overturn in Toronto, while in late January, a tragic collision involving an American Airlines regional plane and an Army helicopter led to multiple fatalities at Reagan National Airport. In a separate event, a medevac jet crash in Philadelphia resulted in seven deaths.

Passenger anxiety is high, with some expressing wariness about future air travel. Air safety experts attribute these incidents partly to coincidence but also highlight systemic issues. Increased air traffic and workload stress among controllers and pilots are seen as critical challenges. Notably, the NTSB reported 13 runway incursions involving commercial flights within the US between January 2023 and September 2024, emphasizing the need for improved organizational competency and resources for air traffic control.



String of airplane mishaps prompts safety concerns

New details tonight on hair-raising incidents like this one. A Southwest Airlines jet had to pull up at the last minute on Tuesday to avoid a private plane crossing the runway at Chicago's Midway International Airport. Newly released data says the planes came as close as about 2,000 feet from each other before the Southwest plane initiated the go-around. Just about 90 minutes before that, another incident occurred at Washington's Reagan National Airport. An American Airlines jet approaching from the north had to cancel a landing and turn away when it was just 450 feet off the ground after it came within one and a quarter miles of a plane preparing to depart on the same runway. One passenger on the flight telling CNN it was terrifying. All of this after a series of other plane mishaps. Toronto, February 17th. A Delta Airlines jet slides and flips over in a fireball upon landing. Incredibly, all on board survived. January 29th, an American Airlines regional plane and an Army Blackhawk helicopter collide over Reagan National Airport. All 67 people aboard both aircraft kill. Two days later, a private medevac jet crashes into a northeast Philadelphia neighborhood killing seven people. Passengers we spoke to shaken by these recent incidents. I don't really have much choice in the matter, but I'm not as confident as I was. You know, it does make me nervous just because I travel a lot. On Monday, passengers aboard a Delta plane were forced to evacuate down slides at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport when smoke or haze permeated through the cabin. In early February, the wing of a Japan Airlines jet struck the tail of a Delta Airlines plane while taxiing at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Right now, I'm very scared to even get on the plane, I'm being honest with you. There's too many mishaps going on. Some of this is coincidence, safety experts say, but there is also an underlying crisis. It's a underscoring of just how stressed the system is. We've got a lot more traffic going on these days. We've got controllers and pilots under stress because of the increased use of runways. What's the most immediate problem that needs to be fixed right now? We need to make sure that our air traffic controllers have the personnel to do their job so that they are not forced to be doing overtime, forced to be staffing more than one position at a time. Reflecting the overall volume of traffic and what air traffic controllers need to keep track of these days, between January of 2023 and September of 2024, the NTSB investigated 13 runway incursions in the U.S. involving so-called for-hire flights, meaning smaller chartered flights. Those incursions ranged in category from some with no immediate safety consequences to others where a collision was narrowly avoided.

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