Feb 23, 2000 - 08:49 AM

Planes Almost Collide Over Kennedy Airport

The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) - Two planes carrying hundreds of passengers nearly collided over Kennedy International Airport, aviation officials said.

A cockpit warning system in one of the planes, which were on a collision course, helped pilots avert a possible crash.

Normal procedures took the planes, a Delta Boeing 727 and a Lockheed L-1011 flown by Tradewinds

Airlines, within 2/3 of a mile of each other Saturday when they should have been at least 2 miles apart, Federal Aviation Administration officials said.

At about 9 a.m., Delta Flight 151, headed for Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was taking off from Runway 4 left.

Tradewinds Flight 798 was preparing to land on Runway 4 right, which is parallel and several hundred yards to the southeast.

While the Delta jet sped toward takeoff, the Tradewinds pilots decided - for unspecified reasons - to abort their landing, resulting in the planes' flying on parallel courses to the northeast.

The Delta pilots, following Kennedy takeoff rules, started to turn east - toward the Tradewinds jet. The planes' proximity triggered an alarm aboard the Delta plane, so its pilots instead flew straight ahead while the Tradewinds jet veered away.

"Within a matter of seconds, it was sorted out," FAA official Frank Hatfield told the New York Post.

The FAA was investigating the incident and planned to interview the pilots and the air traffic controllers and to review air traffic control tapes and radar plots.

"Missed runway approaches are perfectly acceptable and very common," FAA spokeswoman Arlene Salac said today.

The basic procedure after an aborted landing is to circle and attempt another landing, she said.

A near collision, called a loss of separation, is an extremely rare occurrence, she said. Each year,

Kennedy handles about 350,000 takeoffs and landings and experiences two or three near collisions.

Delta and Tradewinds spokespeople were not immediately available for comment.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/florida/MGIGN2OZ05C.html

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 23, 2000

Answers

Carl, we'll have to call you cassandra or something, you're always the harbinger of bad news

-- sir Richard (richard.dale@unum.co.uk), February 23, 2000.

hhhhhmmmmmm

-- too (close@for.comfort), February 23, 2000.

Oh my god....

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), February 23, 2000.

sir Richard...no news is good news...

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 23, 2000.

Newsday

Excerpt:

"EgyptAir Jet Crash-Lands in Zimbabwe

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- An engine on an EgyptAir jet hit the runway and fell off the plane during a landing in bad weather at Harare airport, the airline said today. There were no serious injuries reported among the 76 passengers.

Eight passengers were admitted to hospital with ``minor injuries as a result of the evacuation,'' which happened late Tuesday, EgyptAir said in a statement from Cairo, Egypt. No details were reported about the crew of Flight 880.

Tuesday night's accident is the second involving an EgyptAir Boeing 767 in four months."

(snip)

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), February 23, 2000.

Sir Richard, I appreciate Carls news postings as I am sure many others on this forum do. Kepp up the good work.

-- David Whitelaw (Dande53484@aol.com), February 23, 2000.

I've seen a couple more incidents reported on an aviation safety discussion board, translated from European newspapers, but with no links given.

"On the flight from London to Zurich Monday evening, a Swissair Airbus experienced a sudden drop in cabin pressure. The cause was a faulty ventilation control [?]. The oxygen masks were activated and the pilot quickly descended from 10,000 to 3000 meters. The machine could land without problems. Several passengers were medically treated and a small child was taken to the hospital to be looked at."

"found via the CNN search engine, but the link to the article no longer works:

CNN - Crew escape as cargo plane crashes in African lake - February 5, 2000

Five crew of a Boeing 707 cargo plane survived when the aircraft crashed into Lake Victoria on Thursday night, a senior Tanzanian aviation official said on Saturday."

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), February 23, 2000.