NPR - When pilots report near-midair collisions around Reagan National Airport, there's often a military aircraft involved, an NPR analysis of Federal Aviation Administration data shows. A midair crash like Wednesday's deadly collision near Washington, D.C., is extremely rare. To help keep it that way, the FAA encourages pilots and flight crews to report incidents where such tragedies almost happen – what's known as a "near midair collision," or NMAC.
The agency's database of those reports contains 30 records of NMAC reports at Reagan National since 1987. Of those, at least 10 involved military aircraft, and at least seven included military helicopters.
Nationally, only 23 percent of NMAC reports involved military aircraft, according to the FAA data.
With the relatively high concentration of military flights around Reagan, aviation experts say they aren't surprised to see more of them involved in near-midair collisions.
"There are helicopter routes that traverse the airspace around Metropolitan Washington, D.C., designed for mainly use by military helicopters that are flying in and out of the various bases," says Mike McCormick, a former FAA director of safety and operations for the nation's air traffic control towers. "That would increase the likelihood that there would be in fact near-midair collisions that would be reported," says McCormick, now an associate professor at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla.
NPR - Crowded airspace has been a concern at the D.C.-area airport. More than 23,000 flight operations took place there each month last year.
No comments:
Post a Comment