Similar Incident Occurred In December

The FAA is investigating an alleged air traffic control error that put two planes landing at Newark Liberty International Airport closer than federal guidelines allow. The incident occurred at 2:10pm last Wednesday, and involved Continental Flight 536, a Boeing 737 arriving from Phoenix, and Continental Express Flight 2614, an Embraer 145 arriving from Halifax, Nova Scotia, the Associated Press reports.

According to FAA spokesman Jim Peters, the error occurred at the New York Terminal Radar Approach Center (TRACON) on Long Island, which controls flights descending into New York metropolitan airports before turning them over to the airport tower controllers. An air traffic controller at the TRACON mistakenly gave the Continental Express crew the wrong tower frequency, giving them nearby Teterboro instead of Newark, Peters said.

"We're investigating it as an operational error," he said. As a result, the Newark tower was temporarily unable to contact the crew as both planes approached Newark. At one point, the planes had 1-1/4 mile horizontal and 600 feet vertical separation, rather than the three mile horizontal and 1000 feet vertical separation as required by the FAA.

Both flights landed safely and arrived at the gate about 15 minutes apart, according to Continental.

"This was a very difficult and dangerous situation," said Ray Adams, vice president of the air traffic controllers union at the Newark airport. Adams rejected the FAA's preliminary conclusion and instead attributed the incident to the FAA's procedures for landings at Newark.

"We're disputing the fact that the controller made an error," said Adams.

"This is a concern because of fatigue. We have less people working, which means we are going to have more people working positions longer and traffic longer," said NATCA spokesman Dan Horwitz. This is the second recent incident at Newark investigated by the FAA.

As ANN previously reported, there have been an increasing number of such near-miss incidents in the greater New York area over the last year. According to the National Air Traffic Controller's Association, 1,000 controllers have left the field In the last two years, leaving those who remain fatigued, shorthanded and more susceptible to operational error.

In December, an aircraft landing on one runway had to maneuver to  avoid another aircraft that taxied into its approach path while preparing to takeoff from a separate runway.

FMI: www.faa.gov; www.continental.com