FAA Investigating Why Two Jets Flew on Collision Course

A federal air safety investigation was under way Thursday into why 2 jetliners were on a collision course over Orange County on Monday night after one of the planes was diverted from John Wayne Airport because of a runway light electrical failure.

The aircraft came within 1 1/2 miles of each other about 9,000 feet over Westminster, an American Airlines pilot involved in the incident told his supervisors. Such incidents involving commercial jetliners are rare, compared to incidents involving small general aviation planes and jetliners, officials said.

FAA officials said that air traffic controllers at the Los Angeles Terminal Radar Facility warned the pilot of a British Airways 747 to take evasive action to avoid the American Airlines BAe-146 after the two aircraft closed within the 3-mile separation required under FAA flight rules.

The incident occurred shortly after 7 p.m. Monday, about 20 minutes after a power line short circuit extinguished the runway lights at John Wayne Airport and closed the facility for about 4 hours.

Neither pilot filed a near-collision report. Such reports were filed on an average of more than two times a month in 1987, the most recent period for which data is available, according to the FAA.

FAA officials said they do not know yet whether the collision course was the result of human or mechanical error. No “conflict alert”--a computer-activated alarm that sounds when planes are on collision course--sounded in the FAA’s El Toro radar facility, where controllers were guiding the American Airlines jet, officials said.

The American Airlines flight from San Jose was being diverted to Ontario International Airport. The British Airways flight, en route from Los Angeles to London, was in contact with Los Angeles controllers.

“It was not a near mid-air collision,” said Jim Brown, a spokesman for Dallas-based American Airlines. “The pilot told our flight personnel that he estimated it (the distance) was about a mile and a half, and a near mid-air would be less than that. There were no sudden dives or maneuvers like that.”

“Air traffic control personnel detected the fact that these aircraft had lost the required (3-mile) separation and subsequently redirected the British aircraft,” said Fred O’Donnell, an FAA spokesman based in Los Angeles. “The investigation by our personnel and the National Transportation Safety Board will determine if in fact there was an operational error.”

Operational errors are rare but not unprecedented. FAA officials said the El Toro facility experienced a single operational error in 1988, when a controller put two aircraft too close together in the sky, compared to seven such errors in 1987.

The number of near collisions reported by pilots is far greater than the number of operational errors reported by the FAA, because not all portions of all flights are under air traffic control, officials said.

The FAA received 27 pilot reports of aircraft near collisions in Orange County skies during 1987, compared to 11 in 1985 and 16 in 1986. Two of the reports for 1987 involved so-called “critical” incidents in which only chance prevented a collision because time did not allow either pilot to take evasive action.

On Jan. 11, 1987, a commercial jet came with 112 feet of colliding with a small plane 4,400 feet above Santa Ana. According to the FAA, only chance prevented a crash--when the pilots realized their proximity.

None of the 27 reports in 1987 involved two commercial jetliners converging.