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Air Traffic Controller Mistakes Double As Serious Safety Incidents Reported

Locations in this article:  Los Angeles, CA New York City, NY

Federal Aviation Administration and Air Traffic ControlMistakes made by air traffic controllers have doubled over the last year said a new report released by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) last week.

According to the FAA report, in the 12 months ending on September 30, operational errors by air traffic controllers jumped from 947 to 1,889.

These errors include incidents of planes flying too close together. Of the total errors, few were serious enough to warrant that the pilot take action to avoid an accident.

However, the number of these types of serious incidents also increased over the last year.

In the period monitored by the report, there were 44 events in which pilots had to actively avoid a collision. This number went up from 37 in 2009 and 28 in 2008.

The near misses reported did not include a narrowly averted collision last month between an American Airlines jet and two Air Force transport planes over the skies of southeast New York City.

Learn more about the job: What Does It Take To Be An Air Traffic Controller?

However, January’s near miss, coupled with the reported rise in operational errors, has many in Congress worried about air traffic controller standards.

United States Air Traffic ControlThe situation has put the heat on FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt, who fielded questions about the increase of operational errors at a hearing before the House aviation subcommittee last week.

Babbitt told Congress members that the rise in errors reported was linked to a new program that protected controllers who voluntarily reported their mistakes. The program aimed to increase error reporting in order to enact better training methods and procedures.

In addition, since 2008, technology used to determine how close planes are flying to each other has improved, also possibly contributing to the increase in reported instances.

Despite the increase in mistakes reported by air traffic controllers, American aviation has gone 24 months without a fatal commercial airline crash. The last American plane crash happened in February 2009 when a collision in upstate New York killed 50 people.

By Adriana Padilla for PeterGreenberg.com.

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