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An Alaska Airlines aircraft nearly collided with a FedEx cargo plane during an aborted landing at Newark Liberty International Airport Tuesday evening, radar data shows.
Alaska Airlines Flight 294 was ordered to perform a go-around when FedEx Flight 721 was cleared to approach an intersecting runway for landing, the FAA said in a statement.
The passenger plane cleared the FedEx charter by as little as 300 feet — close to the length of the average American football field — data from FlightRadar24 indicated.
Air traffic controllers directed the Alaska flight to reroute just seconds before it was supposed to touch down, according to audio obtained by the same software.
Michael McCormick, the former vice president of the FAA, told ABC 7 New York that the near-mishap came down to two intersecting runways.
“”It is a challenge for a tower controller to try to get that timing perfect, it doesn’t always work and that’s what happened in this case, so the tower controller waited and unfortunately, in my opinion, too long and they had to send the aircraft on a go-around,” McCormick said.
The FAA and the NTSB are probing the near crash.
The ongoing partial government shutdown has caused significant staffing shortages at a several major airports across the country — with TSA workers currently not receiving pay.
White House economists estimated that the shutdown has caused upwards of $2.5 billion in losses.
Last week, Senate Democrats blocked a bill that would have restored funding to the DHS for the fourth time in the past month.
Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian slammed Congress for the ongoing shutdown, calling politicians’ apparent refusal to settle the funding debacle “inexcusable.”
“We’re outraged,” Bastian seethed.
The partial shutdown entered its 33rd day on Thursday.
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