NTSB investigating near collision over JFK

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced earlier this week that it was conducting an investigation of a near-collision between two jets in the airspace above New York’s JFK Airport last weekend.

What the NTSB has said so far is that reports show a near collision between Cayman Airways flight 792 and Linea Aerea Nacional de Chile flight 533, at 8:36 p.m. EDT, last Saturday.

At the beginning of the week, officials from the Federal Aviation Administration reported that the planes were never closer than a half-mile horizontally and 300 feet vertically. Air traffic controllers, however, said that the aircraft came within 100 feet vertically and were much closer than a half-mile horizontally. They said further that they had to urgently re-direct the planes.

At the time of the incident, the Cayman flight was in the process of a routine “go around,” which is an aborted landing that the control tower typically orders when traffic is excessively heavy. The Chilean flight was taking off from a nearby runway.

“Tower controllers intervened to attempt to resolve the conflict, assigning both aircraft diverging headings,” a NTSB spokesperson said. “The closest proximity of the two aircraft has not yet been determined.”

A preliminary report on the incident is expected by the end of the week.

www.faa.gov