More than 100 passengers on board a Southwest Airlines flight came within 100 feet of crashing into a Cessna business jet at San Diego International Airport this summer.
In February, a Mesa Airlines jet was forced to abort its landing to avoid colliding with a SkyWest jet on the runway at Bob Hope Burbank Airport in California, putting another 100 lives at risk.
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Again that month, a JetBlue Airlines plane also had to initiate an emergency go-around after a Hop-a-Jet flight took off without clearance out of Boston Logan International Airport.
These horrific instances have become far too common over the past year, according to government and industry aviation leaders who briefed lawmakers on Capitol Hill Thursday.
With the holiday travel season already starting and up to 50 million Americans boarding flights daily over the next six weeks, senators and industry officials are crossing their fingers that the next runway incursion will be a near miss and not a deadly collision.
The state of the air
Former military pilot, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), convened the air safety hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Aviation Safety, Operations, and Innovation, Thursday to hear from air traffic control, a government safety board, pilot association, and other industry experts following what was a troubling year for flight safety.
“In a recent 12-month period, there were 300 accounts of near collisions involving commercial carriers. That’s almost one near miss per day,” said Duckworth, subcommittee chairwoman, “The near misses we’ve been seeing recently are not normal. They’re a warning that our aviation system is under stress.”
Runway incursions and near misses between commercial planes have fluctuated through the years, but fiscal 2023, which ended on Sept. 30, was one of the worst in a decade, reaching 23 incidents at U.S. airports, up from eight in 2017, according to data shared at the Senate hearing.
Tim Ariel, chief operating officer for the Federal Aviation Administration’s Air Traffic Organization, said incidents are rare.
Data documenting every incident is not publicly available, keeping the extent of the danger out of plain sight for passengers. However, a New York Times investigation in August uncovered 46 close calls involving commercial airlines in July alone and nearly 300 total near collisions in 12 months. The New York Times data was based on voluntary disclosures from pilots, controllers, and others.
In a rare show of agreement, Democratic and Republican senators collectively admitted the problems facing the industry were serious, but resolving them would not be an overnight fix.
“While these events are incredibly rare, our safety system is showing clear signs of strain that we cannot ignore,” said Jennifer Homendy, National Transportation Safety Board chairwoman. “These incidents must serve as a wake-up call before something more catastrophic occurs.”
How we got here
Duckworth pointed to a surge in retirements across the aviation industry, particularly during and after the pandemic, as having played a significant role in the state of the skies and runways today.
“Coupled with a surge in demand, [it] created essentially a perfect storm that’s eroded the system safety margins down to dangerously thin levels and far too many near misses,” said Duckworth. “The difference between a close call and a deadly disaster has depended on a single individual taking emergency action, along with some good luck.”
Duckworth blamed the less-experienced workforce, including pilots and air traffic controllers, and a “pervasive” shortage in air traffic controllers for operators that were not functioning at top notch while on the job. The shortage of air traffic controllers in particular has forced most controllers to work six-day weeks of 60 hours, often rotating from day and night shifts, negatively impacting circadian rhythm, according to witness testimony.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the committee’s top Republican, asked how concerned the witnesses were that 77% of air traffic control facilities nationwide are understaffed.
“What’s happening from the staffing shortage is that air traffic controllers are being required to do mandatory overtime. And what happens with mandatory overtime? It ends up leading to fatigue and distraction, which is exactly what we’re seeing as part of these incident investigations, and it all just comes down to the shortage of staffing,” said Homendy.
The mental health of employees industrywide was also a factor. Facing such strains and overwhelming hours, aviation employees are coming under mental strain, which Homendy said needed to be better addressed.
Where to go from here
The FAA is fast-tracking technology to airports that can monitor runways for unexpected movement from planes that are out of place in case air traffic controllers cannot spot it.
Lawmakers have tried to boost the number of air traffic controllers for years but with no success.
President Joe Biden’s budget for 2023 called for hiring 1,500 more controllers and 1,800 more in 2024.
Rich Santa, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, laid the blame at the feet of the FAA, which he said failed to hit hiring goals over a decade.
“We are not healthier than we were last year, controllerwise. I think FAA’s own numbers indicate we have potentially six more air traffic controllers than we had last year systemwide: 10,721,” said Santa. “Using their decade-old number, we should be at 13,097.”
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Santa also docked the FAA with its approach of trying to “get more productivity” of the available controllers rather than hiring more employees.
“The answer is not continuing to burden us with more fatigue,” said Santa.
