The Brown & White

A near-crash between a commercial jet and a small Cessna airplane at Lehigh Valley International Airport is under investigation, said a transportation safety official.

The two planes came an estimated 10 feet from each other on Sept. 19, according to a National Transportation Safety Board press release.

Peter Knudson, a National Transportation Safety Board spokesman, said an investigation is under way and the controllers who were on duty have been interviewed and an investigator has examined the runway.

"As we understand there was substantial braking at about the time the commuter jet was trying to avoid the collision with the Cessna, so we want to find out the details of what happened," Knudson said.

The near crash occurred when a runway that had been cleared for takeoff by an air traffic controller was still occupied by the Cessna, the report said.

A commercial jet operated by Mesa Airlines, which was taking off on the same runway, had reached about 138.2 mph at the time and was forced to swerve around the Cessna. There were no reported injuries to those on board the Cessna or the jet.

Knudson said by understanding the sequence of events that led up to the near crash, the safety board can better understand how to prevent future problems.

Jeff Fisher, president of the Allentown chapter of the Air Traffic Controllers Association, said the incident highlights a Federal Aviation Administration staffing crisis. Neither of the controllers in the control tower at the time of the incident was fully certified, Fisher said.

As rising numbers of experienced controllers retire because of low wages and long hours, the FAA is desperate to replace controllers, Fisher said. The ratio of trainees to certified controllers has increased at airports across the country, Fisher said.

While the controller who cleared the Mesa Airlines jet was certified to work in the control tower, he was not a fully qualified air traffic controller, Fisher said.

"We have four positions that you have to certify on in the tower, and we also have three radar positions downstairs," Fisher said. "So when we characterize trainees in the tower, the reason we say that is because they're not certified in all the positions in the building. That kind of automatically means they don't have experience in the building."

The controller who was on duty at the time of the incident had been certified in the control tower for less than two months, Fisher said.

"The problem with the configuration in the tower at that time is that when you have two trainees up there, even if they're certified in the positions, you still have no real veteran up there in the tower," Fisher said.

The FAA may now try to ensure that a veteran controller is in the control tower at all times, Fisher said.

"There isn't something totally mandated yet that says that it needs to happen," he said. "[The problem is] all the really experienced people are by definition more likely to be in the radar room because the trainees aren't certified there."

Knudson said he did not know if the FAA staffing situation contributed to the incident.

"Once we complete our investigation and come to probable cause, then [it] may speak to those issues, or it may not depending on what we conclude," he said.

The National Transportation Safety Board has been calling for the FAA to adopt technology that would send a direct warning of a potential runway incursion to the pilot, Knudson said.

"Some sort of technology which, if an aircraft was about to enter a runway already occupied by an aircraft or about to be occupied by an aircraft, would give them an alarm without going through the air traffic control system," he said, which would allow the pilot to react quickly.

"We believe that this direct warning we're calling for would make a big difference," he said.

George Doughty, executive director of Lehigh-Northampton Airport Authority, which runs LVIA, said LVIA sees about 140,000 aircraft operations each year.

There has not been a major accident at LVIA in many years, Doughty said.

"The FAA has a national program to investigate these incidents and try to improve their procedures," Doughty said. "It's an on-going program because these kinds of things occur at all airports around the country, fortunately not that frequently and fortunately very rarely does it involve damage to aircraft or injury to people," Doughty said.

"They do occur, [and] they are procedural errors that the FAA has to investigate and come up with better ways to ensure that they won't happen again," he said.

An FAA representative was unavailable for comment.