Regulators conducting interviews in JFK airport near-crash probe

Investigators are probing the narrowly avoided catastrophic collision between two airliners at New York’s JFK airport Friday evening and are already conducting interviews, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The incident involved an American Airlines 777 that improperly crossed an active runway at the busy airport. “S**t!” an air traffic controller called out over the radio, urgently directing a Delta Air Lines 737 to stop its takeoff from the same runway where the American plane rolled across its direct path. The Delta plane stopped within 1,000 feet of the American jet. NTSB spokeswoman Sarah Sulick said interviews related to the investigation are ongoing, a detail that has not yet been reported elsewhere. She provided no further details. American (AAL) spokesman Derek Walls said the airline is “conducting a full internal review and cooperating with the National Transportation Safety Board in their investigation.” The union representing American (AAL) pilots, the Allied Pilots Association, said, “We respect the process and we’re going to let that run its full course.” Another source of information investigators typically turn to when determining what happened inside the cockpit of an airliner incident is the cockpit voice recorder, one of the two so-called black boxes. Investigators will be able to listen to the radio transmissions, which have already been recorded and preserved. The conversations between crew members that are not broadcast over the radio are picked up by the CVR.<br/>