Jetblue and Southwest Planes Narrowly Avoid Collision at DCA Airport as Controllers Panic

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Last year, a deeply concerning series of runway near-misses at airports across America prompted public concern and investigations into the safety and quality of air traffic control across the country. We eventually got a reprieve from these scary near-misses, just in time for door plugs and landing gear to start falling off of airplanes. Yay...

Unfortunately, that hot streak of no high-profile near-collisions came to an end yesterday in a dramatic incident that narrowly avoided escalating into disaster. On April 18, a Southwest Airlines plane and a JetBlue flight nearly collided on the runway at Reagan National Airport, coming within feet of each other and sending air traffic controllers into a panic.

The audio of the air traffic controllers shared in the @abcworldnews report is chilling. Everyone in that tower is aware of the deadly disaster they're about to have on their hands. The JetBlue flight was already accelerating for takeoff when the Southwest Airlines plane was cleared to cross the runway, and a high-speed collision was imminent. Fortunately, the pilots of both planes slammed their brakes, and while the passengers on board were startled, the planes avoided collision, stopping within 400 feet of each other. Had either plane delayed braking by a few seconds more, the consequences would have been disastrous.

Related: American Airlines Pilots Get Real About Concerning Safety Issues in Aviation

Though the FAA is currently investigating the situation at DCA Airport , the issue currently appears to have resulted from an error or miscommunication from air traffic control, as both planes had been cleared by the tower to move along their respective paths. Veteran pilot and aviation safety expert John Nance expressed his concern at how serious this near-miss was, noting that there was "almost no margin for any further error."

" This is unacceptably close ,” Nance told Washington, DC's WTOP News . “We have a dichotomy between two controllers who did not have situational awareness of exactly who was doing what. This is very unusual, because they usually coordinate as seamlessly as possible.”

Improving Air Traffic Control

Air traffic controllers are responsible for safely routing thousands of passenger flights across the country every single day, and as we saw yesterday at DCA, simple mistakes can quickly escalate into life-or-death situations. After a series of near-miss runway incidents last year, a New York Times investigation delved into the chronic issues plaguing air traffic controllers , uncovering widespread problems like exhaustion, outdated technology, understaffing, mental health crises, and even drug and alcohol abuse exacerbated by a need to keep up with the demands of work. With many air traffic controllers closed to their breaking point and stretched thin by work, the series of errors that plagued air travel last year started to make sense.

Luckily, regulators are listening and taking steps in the right direction. Today, FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker announced that the FAA would be increasing time off between ATC shifts within the next 90 days to mitigate the widespread fatigue that has plagued so many air traffic controllers. This move, Whitaker promises, is only an "initial step" in the implementation of key reforms and long-term systemic changes that will be made to ensure controllers are getting better rest. In the meantime, they're also pushing harder than ever to recruit more controllers and hopefully solve ATC's widespread understaffing problem. The FAA is also in the process of modernizing air traffic control infrastructure through their NextGen initiative .

Of course, at this time, we don't know whether worker fatigue or faulty equipment led to the DCA incident, and the FAA is still investigating the cause. Still, any initiative to make air traffic control easier and more precise for its workers is a big step in a safer direction for everyone who flies.

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