Tower error blamed for 2 planes nearly colliding over MSP
By PAUL WALSH, Star Tribune
Last update: October 27, 2010 - 9:32 AM
The near midair collision of a commercial airliner and a cargo plane that occurred last month over the Twin Cities is being blamed on an air-traffic control error.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), in preliminary findings released Wednesday, said the tower mistakenly instructed the US Airways jetliner to turn left shortly after departing the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, bringing it within 50 to 100 feet above the climbing Bemidji Aviation Services' Beech 99 aircraft.
The US Airways captain heard the cargo plane below but "neither pilot saw the other aircraft because they were operating in instrument meteorological conditions," the NTSB report read.
The agency has yet to explain why the errant instruction from the tower was issued.
"It will be some months" before a final report on the incident is released and more about what prompted the tower's order are revealed, said NTSB spokeswoman Bridget Ann Serchak.
The report added that the US Airways aircraft was aided in averting disaster because its collision-avoidance system issued climbing instructions to the cockpit. The cargo plane was not equipped with that technology.
It was about 6:50 a.m. Sept. 16, and the Thursday morning rush hour was just unfolding, when the two planes left on parallel runways and nearly collided over the intersection of Hwys. 62 and 77, which is a half-mile northwest of the airport's edge and not far from south Minneapolis neighborhoods.
The US Airways plane was carrying 95 people and was headed to Philadelphia. The cargo plane, with only the pilot aboard, was bound for La Crosse, Wis. Both continued on as scheduled.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the planes needed 1,000 feet of vertical separation.
Midair collisions, though rare, are almost always disastrous. A recent spate of near or actual midair crashes, including four others involving U.S. jetliners or air taxis in the past 17 months, already had prompted the FAA to launch fresh studies of the problem.
Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482