Reagan airport has had a number of calls close in recent years

Before the murderous plane accident Wednesday evening near Ronald Reagan National Airport, there have been at least 10 calls close to Washington Airport in the last three years that have been documented in government files Examined by the New York Times.

One of the most alarming came last April, when a Southwest Airlines flight was invited to cross the same track as a JetBlue Airways plane was eliminated by a controller to take off. The Jetblue plane suddenly aborted its takeoff after a controller shouted to its pilots to stop. The jet came less than 312 feet from the southwest aircraft, according to a preliminary security report of the Federal Aviation Administration and the recordings that the Times examined. The security report indicates that the controller who had cleared the southwest aircraft had not coordinated with the controller directing the JetBlue plane.

The following month, an American Airlines plane was authorized to take off at the same time as a private plane was authorized to land on an intersection track, according to another preliminary security ratio. As the American jet started to speed up the track, the controller suddenly canceled the takeoff. The jet left the track, but the private plane had already approached the moment when he received instructions from the controller to interrupt his landing. The controller did not warn the pilots of one or the other plane on the other plane and both fast moving The planes found themselves at around 1,600 feet from each other.

These two incidents are now listed in a public database of what aviation officials call for track forays. This database, which is maintained by the FAA, has classified no 2024 incident to Reagan national as serious enough to have the collision potential.

Calls close to Reagan National were part of a model of safety keys in the sky and on the slopes across the country. A series of investigation from the New York Times in 2023 revealed that close calls involving commercial airlines had occurred, on average, several times a week. The quasi-accidents often took place in or near large airports and were often the result of errors by pilots or air traffic controllers.

Times obtained reports in 2023, for example, which showed that there had been 503 losses of air traffic control that the FAA classified preliminary as “significant” during the exercise which ended the September 30, 2023, 65% more than the previous year. During this period, air traffic increased by around 4%.