The acting administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday he would convene an industry safety summit, direct a fresh review of internal incident data and take steps to improve collaboration inside his agency after a recent spate of near-misses involving airliners.
The incident appears to bear similarities with other close calls in New York and Texas.
In a memo Tuesday to his senior management team, acting FAA administrator Billy Nolen did not point to specific incidents that sparked his concern but said the FAA and aviation industry could not take its safety record for granted.
“Recent events remind us that we must not become complacent,” he wrote. “Now is the time to stare into the data and ask hard questions.”
Nolen’s agency is under increasing scrutiny. On Wednesday, he is scheduled to appear before the Senate Commerce Committee to face questions on the outage last month of a safety bulletin system — a failure that disrupted thousands of flights — and he is also expected to be asked about the near miss incidents.
Last week, members of the House Transportation Committee voiced concerns that the agency had been too slow to act on long-standing safety issues and management problems.
“It shows that even following the safest decade in our history, our aviation system is clearly in need of some urgent attention,” committee chairman Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) said last week.
Many lawmakers have pointed to the lack of a Senate-confirmed leader for nearly a year as one of the biggest issues facing the agency. President Biden has nominated Phillip A. Washington, chief executive of Denver International Airport, to run the FAA, but key senators have raised questions about his qualifications.
For Nolen, taking fresh steps on safety sends a signal that the FAA can still move forward on pressing issues until a leader is confirmed.
The first action outlined in the memo is a safety summit next month. Nolen said it will involve aviation industry leaders and labor unions, examining what is working and why some safety mitigations “appear to be not as effective as they once were.”
The review also will include a look at internal agency safety data to determine whether there are other incidents mirroring those seen in recent weeks and if any trends can be identified. Lastly, Nolen said a review team will examine the agency’s Air Traffic Organization, which manages the nation’s airspace, and look for ways it can work more effectively with the FAA’s Aviation Safety Organization.
“I know that all of you share my goal to do what is necessary to keep our organization strong, effective and well prepared to take on the safety challenges of the future,” Nolen wrote.
Sunday marked 14 years since 50 people were killed after Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed on approach to Buffalo-Niagara International Airport. But officials and experts say complacency is a threat to the airline industry’s strong safety record, and that recent close calls have focused attention on potential risks.
Peter Knudson, an NTSB spokesman, said the board investigates incidents that present a “significant risk of a catastrophic outcome.” He said “the three recent runway incursions in New York, Austin and Honolulu all fit into that category.”
The first of the three took place Jan. 13. An American Airlines jet crossed a runway in front of a Delta Air Lines plane at John F. Kennedy International Airport as it was preparing to take off. The American pilots have refused to take part in taped interviews with the board’s investigators, prompting federal officials to subpoena them.
The Honolulu incident occurred Jan. 23. Knudson said neither aircraft was damaged and no one was injured. United Airlines referred questions to the NTSB. The Cessna 208B was being operated by Kamaka Air, a cargo carrier. That company could not immediately be reached for comment.
The FAA is also investigating. The agency said an air traffic controller told the United crew to stop on a taxiway before reaching the runway, but the aircraft crossed instead. The Cessna stopped about 1,170 feet from the United jet, the FAA said.
The third close call took place Feb 4. at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. An air traffic controller cleared a FedEx cargo jet to land on a runway where a Southwest Airlines passenger flight had also been cleared to take off. The planes came within 100 feet of one another, the NTSB has said.
On Tuesday, the NTSB also announced it was opening an investigation into a Dec. 18 incident in which a United Airlines Boeing 777 dove 1,400 feet toward the Pacific Ocean shortly after taking off from Maui. The incident had been investigated by the FAA but only became public after a report by aviation news site the Air Current.
While the incidents are unique, they represent an unusual cluster of close calls in the span of a few weeks. It’s the job of the NTSB to investigate serious near misses to determine if the aviation industry can learn lessons that could prevent future disasters.
