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Runway near misses a concern ahead of Memorial Day travel

  • Officials are investigating an uptick in near-collisions involving planes
  • FAA cited new pilots and increased travel after the pandemic as factors
  • AAA: 42.3 million Americans expected to travel Memorial Day weekend

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ARLINGTON, Va. (NewsNation) — As people across the country prepare to hit the road and sky for Memorial Day, aviation-industry experts and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have concerns about the recent increase in near collisions on runways at America’s airports.

AAA projects this will be the third busiest Memorial Day Weekend since 2000, when the company started tracking holiday travel, as 42.3 million people are expected to travel for the unofficial start of summer.

The Wall Street Journal reports the FAA held an “unusual” meeting in March where officials “tossed around theories for those close calls, many focusing on strains stemming from the sudden bounceback in travel after the pandemic.”

Some officials cited a lack of experience among new pilots or distractions facing air-traffic controllers.

On Tuesday, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy addressed some of these concerns.

“The most dangerous incursions, the closest calls, appear to be on the rise. These are the ones FAA defines as Category A or B events — incidents with a ‘significant potential’ for collision or in which a collision was ‘narrowly avoided,'” she said.

Homendy referenced alarming near-crashes in recent months, including one in February when a FedEx plane nearly landed on top of a Southwest Airlines plane with 131 people on board in Austin. They came within 115 feet of each other but didn’t collide.

In January, a pilot made a wrong turn on a John F. Kennedy International Airpot runway, which almost resulted in a crash.

So far, in 2023 a total of 365 runway incursions were reported, six of which the NTSB is investigating.

The FAA told NewsNation it invested $100 million to improve runways a 12 of the nation’s airports. They also noted a downward trend for total runway incursions over the last six months.

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