Does it seem like there’s been more near collisions on the nation’s airport runways recently?

The New York Times reports there have been more near misses than are actually reported in the media. The Times reported  that in January, a Delta plane almost collided with an American Airlines flight that was on the wrong runway at JFK. The pilot slammed on the brakes.

The next month, in Austin, a FedEx cargo plane came within 100 feet of a Southwest flight packed with passengers.

The Times report also said there is an ongoing shortage of air traffic controllers and more planes in the sky which can lead to problems.

On The Spark Wednesday, Scott Miller, Deputy Director of Marketing and Public Relations at Harrisburg International Airport said HIA hasn't had any near misses recently and he said the airport's design is one of the reasons,"It's one of those things in which we are fortunate in the sense of with a one runway system, we don't have all of the intersections and cross runways that you'll find in Boston, Fort Lauderdale, JFK, places like that, because it's where the wind patterns are. We only need one runway. So it's a much simpler process here. And it's easier, so to speak, from a training perspective because there's just less to teach."

Belinda Svirbely, HIA's Deputy Director, Operations and Security was also on the program,"Our aviation system is full of professionals who are very good at their job. Training is paramount. So we train everybody that operates on the airside, whether that's a mechanic who taxis an aircraft around, whether that's a maintenance employee who's driving the airfield. They all get training to recognize where the runway is, where the taxiway is, radio communication procedures, safety areas that are built around the runways to ensure that there is no interaction with an aircraft that's landing or taking off. So training is paramount to our safety programs. But so are the meetings that we have on a regular basis to ensure that everybody is up to speed with what's going on and answer any questions or concerns that might be out there."

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