Safety officials release details of their investigation into a close call between planes in Texas

The air traffic controller on duty when FedEx and Southwest planes nearly collided earlier this year in Texas told investigators that he expected the airliner to take off more quickly — before the incoming FedEx plane reached the same runway. That is because in his four years working the tower at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, the controller said, Southwest planes usually took off as soon as they got permission. “But hindsight being 20/20,” controller Damian Campbell told investigators, he “definitely could have held them,” referring to making the Southwest crew wait. Campbell said in a transcript released Wednesday that he couldn’t even see the Southwest plane through the dense early morning fog on Feb. 4. The FedEx pilots spotted it at the last second and aborted their landing. The planes missed each other by about 100 feet (30 meters). The NTSB released transcripts of interviews and other details of its investigation but did not state a probable cause for the harrowing close call. That determination is expected early next year. The near-disaster in Austin is the scariest among more than a half-dozen close calls that the NTSB has investigated this year.<br/>