Reagan Airport Had a Number of Close Calls in Recent Years
Before the deadly plane crash on Wednesday night near Ronald Reagan National Airport, there were at least 10 close calls at the Washington airport in the last three years that were documented in government records reviewed by The New York Times.One of the most alarming came last April, when a Southwest Airlines flight was instructed to cross the same runway that a JetBlue Airways plane was cleared by a controller to take off from.The JetBlue plane abruptly aborted its takeoff after a controller yelled at its pilots to stop.
The jet came within 312 feet of the Southwest plane, according to a preliminary Federal Aviation Administration safety report and recordings that The Times reviewed.The safety report said that the controller who had cleared the Southwest plane had not coordinated with the controller directing the JetBlue plane.The next month, an American Airlines jet was cleared to take off at the same time that a private plane was given permission to land on an intersecting runway, according to another preliminary safety report.
As the American jet began speeding down the runway, the controller suddenly called off the takeoff.The jet exited the runway but the private plane had already touched down by the time it received instructions from the controller to abort its landing.
The controller did not warn the pilots of either plane about the other aircraft, and the two fast-moving planes got within about 1,600 feet of each other.Those two incidents are now listed in a public database of what aviation officials call runway incursions.That database, which is maintained by the F.A.A., did not categorize any 2024 incidents at Reagan National as serious enough to have the potential for collision.The close calls at Reagan National were part of a pattern of safety lapses in the skies and on runways across the country.
A New York Times investigative series in 2023 found that close calls involving commercial airlines happened, on average, multiple times each week.The n...