In the wake of a series of high-profile near-collisions at U.S. airports — and one terrifying plunge from the sky — the Federal Aviation Administration is hosting an impromptu safety summit Wednesday to assess whether changes need to be made to how American flights are regulated.
In an interview with NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt, acting FAA Administrator Billy Nolen said that while it remains safe to fly, officials have grown concerned as they have begun “to see things that we don’t expect to see.”
“We expect every flight to operate as it should,” Nolen said. “And so we’ve had these events over the past few weeks. That gives us a moment to say, Let’s stop. Let’s reflect. Let’s ask ourselves the question: Are we missing anything?”
The full interview airs Tuesday evening on NBC’s Nightly News at 6:30 p.m. ET.
Near-collisions rattle flyers
Among the most high-profile of the recent incidents: An American Airlines flight crossed an active taxiway at JFK Airport in New York City as a Delta Airlines flight was about to take off, prompting the FAA to issue subpoenas to the American pilots; a Learjet 60 took off from Boston’s Logan International Airport without clearance and nearly collided with a landing JetBlue flight; and a FedEx cargo airplane trying to land at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas narrowly avoided hitting a Southwest Airlines flight preparing to take off.
In fact, FAA data show there have been fewer overall near-miss incidents over the past six months than in the same periods prior.
Still, compared with an average of four to 10 “serious runway events” or near misses a year over the past decade, Nolen said, recent months have produced more incidents “than you’d expect to see.”
That also includes a United Airlines flight taking off from Maui unexpectedly plunging to within 800 feet of the Pacific Ocean, causing terror aboard.
“It’s a good opportunity for us to just make sure, let’s go pressure test our…
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