Says 737 Came Within 100 Feet Of 757 During Go-Around

Hot on the heels of a story that made rounds over the Fourth of July holiday regarding go -around procedures at a number of US airports, comes word from the National Air Traffic Controllers Association there was an "ugly" close call at JFK Airport.

The controllers union tells ANN the incident occurred Saturday night, and involved a LAN Chile Boeing 767 and a Cayman Airways Boeing 737.

"At approximately 8:30 pm EDT, LAN Chile Flight 533 was taking off from Runway 13-Right," NATCA states. "At the same time, Cayman Airways Flight 792 (Boeing 737) was executing a missed approach on 22-Left, which runs perpendicular off the end of 13-Right.

"When a JFK Tower air traffic controller saw that Cayman 792 was executing the missed approach, he gave instructions for the jet to make a left turn to avoid the departing LAN Chile 533, which was told to turn right, over the water. But it was too late. The paths of both jets crossed."

FAA officials said Monday they could not immediately confirm the incident took place, reports BusinessWeek. NATCA says controllers at the New York Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) in Westbury, NY saw the radar targets of both jets merged on top of each other and estimated their closest proximity at 100 feet.

"Controllers at both JFK Tower and New York TRACON all used the word "ugly" to describe the incident," NATCA said. "One TRACON controller said it was the ugliest go-around they have seen in 24 years on the job. Other TRACON controllers said the radar targets of both jets merged into one on their scopes."

FMI: www.faa.gov, www.natca.org