FAA issues safety alert after runway near misses

The FAA on Wednesday called on airlines to exercise “continued vigilance” after a string of high-profile near misses on runways, including at Kennedy International Airport in New York in January. The agency’s notice said that while its data does “not reflect an increase in incidents and occurrences, the potential severity of these events is concerning.” The FAA issued the bulletin after holding a safety summit with airlines, airport operators and workers last week to address recent “incidents across the aviation system,” including unruly passengers and near misses on runways at major airports. “I think I speak for all of us, and certainly the traveling public, when I say these events are concerning,” the FAA’s acting administrator, Billy Nolen, said in his opening remarks at the summit. “They are not what we have come to expect during a time of unprecedented safety in the US air transportation system.” There are more than 45,000 flights each day in US national airspace, according to the FAA. In recent months, planes came unnervingly close on runways in New York, Texas, Boston, Hawaii, Florida and Virginia, outside Washington, DC. In January, a Delta Air Lines plane had to abort its takeoff after an American Airlines plane crossed about 1,000 feet in front of it at Kennedy. In February, two planes narrowly avoided a collision at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas after a FedEx cargo plane aborted its landing on the same runway that a Southwest Airlines flight had just been cleared to take off from. Though these events have received considerable attention, there has not been a significant increase in what the F.A.A. calls “runway incursions”— events involving the “incorrect presence” of an aircraft, vehicle or person in a landing or takeoff area.<br/>