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United Airlines jet and small plane narrowly escape midair collision
by Jaspreet Virk - March 31, 2010 - comments
The United Airlines pilots saw a small plane taking a left turn to the right of their cockpit, and immediately the pilots leveled off the plane to avoid accident. After the incident, the plane continued on to Beijing.
A United Airlines Boeing 777 narrowly missed colliding with a small plane in midair over San Francisco on Saturday, reported National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
The United Airlines jet flight 889 came as close as 200 feet to a small plane, Cessna 182, which was flying south.
Near collision incident
The incident took place at around 11:20 on Saturday. The United flight, with 251 passengers and 17 crew members, took off from San Francisco International Airport, bound for Beijing.
Few minutes after United jet took off, it spotted a small plane, flying south.
The air traffic controller had warned Cessna to maintain distance from the bigger commercial flight. Even Cessna had confirmed that United’s flight "is in sight," and that it would just “pass behind” the commercial jet.
Though United’s airliner and Cessna were 600 feet apart vertically, they were just six-tenths of a mile away from each other horizontally over the San Bruno Mountain.
But as the jet reached 1,500 feet, a traffic warning was issued by its automated traffic collision avoidance system.
The United pilots saw a small plane taking a left turn to the right of their cockpit, and immediately the pilots leveled off the plane to avoid accident. After the incident, the plane continued on to Beijing.
Incident under investigation
The NTSB has launched an investigation to find out why the commercial jet and a small plane came close to each other.
Two planes are supposed to be at least 500 feet apart vertically and 1.5 miles away from each other horizontally. Though United’s airliner and Cessna were 600 feet apart vertically, they were just six-tenths of a mile away from each other horizontally over the San Bruno Mountain.
The board will review the air traffic control tapes, and radar data to determine the cause of near collision. A United Airlines spokesperson, Jean Medina, said that they are fully co-operating with the investigation.
Even the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has assured that it is taking "strong measures to make sure something similar does not occur in the future"
The Saturday’s occurrence is not the United’s first possible collision in the area. In 1998, the airline’s jumbo jet lost power in one engine during takeoff from San Francisco. The pilot mishandled the recovery as he had done little flying in the previous year.
After the incident, FAA had revised training standards for pilots.