Et was a moment of horror for the 196 passengers on Flight 624. Just before the Delta Airlines plane was about to take off from Mexico City Airport for New York on Monday, the occupants suddenly felt a jolt. A plane waiting behind them has crashed into the Delta machine in the middle of the runway. It must have been lucky that no one was injured.
The incident in Mexico is only the latest in a series of dicey incidents. Scary near misses at airports are currently piling up in North America. It’s about machines that take off and land at the same time on the same runway. About equipment that gets in the way on the runways. Or about planes that drop towards the ground for a few seconds shortly after take-off.
The fact that such incidents are increasingly occurring is now also putting the US aviation authority FAA on alert. Their boss, Billy Nolen, calls the development “worrying”. “They are not what we expect at a time of unprecedented security in the air transportation system.”
The chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, Jennifer Homendy, said even more drastically: “These recent incidents must serve as a wake-up call for each and every one of us, before a catastrophe happens, before people die.” A few weeks ago, FAA chief Nolen called one Summit to seek solutions with the industry. This should only be the prelude to further talks in the coming months. After all, the main travel season is just beginning.
The number of runway incidents recorded by the FAA has steadily increased in recent years. According to the FAA, the total number of incidents in the US in 2022 was 1,732 — up 158 from the previous year. A decade ago, the agency counted just 1,397 incidents.
And the list for the current year is already long to read. In mid-January, for example, a plane crossed a runway at New York’s JFK Airport while another plane was about to take off. Ten days later, a similar incident occurred in Honolulu, when a small cargo plane landed just behind a crowded passenger plane. The investigators said there was only about 40 meters between the two planes.
A plane suddenly had to go around at California’s Burbank Airport in February when the crew noticed that another plane was taking off from the same runway at the same time. Passengers in Hawaii recently also experienced dramatic seconds: Shortly after take-off, the machine fell for 21 seconds in the direction of the Pacific Ocean and only recovered at a height of around 30 meters above sea level.
And one incident in February came particularly close to catastrophe. When cargo pilots landed in Austin, Texas, a passenger plane took off at the same time. A decision by air traffic control later turned out to be fatal: they had released both machines on this foggy day. The planes came within ten feet of each other.
Despite the most recent incidents, the following still applies: the plane is one of the safest means of transport in the world. Because compared to the number of flights that take place, the number of near-accidents counted is negligible. Around 45,000 flights take off and land in the USA alone – every day. They transport 2.9 million passengers.
Insufficiently trained staff as a result of the corona pandemic
And yet the authorities have long been wondering about the causes of the increasing number of incidents. Nobody believes in coincidence. “How much of what we’re seeing can be attributed to the sudden increase in demand after the corona pandemic?” asks FAA chief Nolen.
Experts are sure of it. “The system is definitely overloaded,” Stephen Ganyard, a former chief of staff at the US State Department, told ABC. For passengers, the corona pandemic is long over, but the airports and airlines are still chasing people’s great desire to travel.
The reason: In the midst of strict lockdowns, the aviation industry has had to lay off large parts of its workforce. As a result, there is not only a lack of manpower today, many new hires also lack experience. “Anytime you put that kind of pressure on a system like that, there are going to be people who make mistakes,” Ganyard said.
In the skies over Germany, there have been no reports of dramatic convergences or even near collisions in recent months. However, the responsible Federal Supervisory Office for Air Traffic Control (BAF) only has data from 2021, i.e. from times under the influence of the pandemic, even on request.
In that year, 71 approaches were reported, of which 13 were rated by the authorities as category A (“risk of collision”) and another 13 with the second highest risk classification B (“safety not guaranteed”). In the year before the pandemic (2019), 51 incidents were reported, although this may also be due to the airlines’ hesitant reporting behavior.
What seems to be increasing are incidents on the ground. “We are registering an increasing number of aircraft failures due to accidents on the ground – if, for example, a stair climber damages an aircraft and is therefore no longer allowed to fly,” reports an airline manager who does not wish to be quoted publicly. The Luftfahrt-Bundesamt confirms this observation. In the period from 2019 to 2023, an increasing number of reportable events were registered in which aircraft were damaged during ground handling.
Lack of driving practice is often the cause of ground accidents
A banal reason for this seems to be a lack of driving experience. Because in Germany too, many of the ground service providers at the airports laid off employees on a large scale during the pandemic – and are now having great difficulty finding and training new ones. “Routine has been lost, processes have to be re-established. This is causing problems at airports around the world,” says aviation expert Heinrich Großbongardt.
Apart from delays or flight cancellations, alleged minor accidents hold only limited terror for passengers. The airlines, on the other hand, suffer considerable financial damage, according to Großbongardt. Even if there is no significant damage to a machine, a one-day downtime can quickly cost it a mid-six-figure sum.
In the USA, on the other hand, there is danger not only from incidents at the airports – but also in the machine itself. The FAA again speaks of numerous rude to criminal passengers on board.
Within a year, more than a dozen were reported to the FBI “for prosecution.” The number of incidents involving passengers has fallen again since the previous record in 2021. “But unacceptable behavior continues to occur,” the agency said.
Some of the recent events are serious. As recently as March, a passenger is said to have tried to open an airplane door and threatened a flight attendant. In January, a passenger reportedly refused to sit down and repeatedly claimed he had to fly the plane himself, FAA records show. There is also talk of several sexual assaults.
“Anyone who can’t behave on an airplane should stay at home because they can expect serious consequences,” warned FAA chief Nolen. “We have zero tolerance for unruly behavior.” And the FBI is also committed to investigating all incidents on board commercial flights.
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