Air Controller Error Leads To Close Call

Another error by controllers at an air traffic center put planes too close to each other over central Illinois, but they were never in danger of colliding, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

It was the second error by controllers at the FAA's Chicago Center radar facility in Aurora reported this week.

The Boeing 737 jet came within 3.6 miles horizontally of a Beechcraft Super King Air 200 about 20 miles from Springfield on Wednesday morning, FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro said Thursday.

Minimum spacing between planes is 5 miles horizontally or 1,000 feet vertically.

The 737, operated by Southwest Airlines, flew to Chicago from St. Louis, and the other plane traveled to Farmington, New Mexico, from West Lafayette, Indiana, the Chicago Tribune reported Thursday on its Web site.

Molinaro did not know how many passengers were on the planes.

A trainee's instructions caused the airplanes to be "closer than they should have been," but the planes had already passed each other when they flew within 3.6 miles, Molinaro said.

Both the trainee and the supervising controller were taken off duty and sent for retraining, standard procedure, Molinaro said.

A United Express jet headed to Lexington, Kentucky, from O'Hare International Airport and a C130 military jet got within 3.17 miles of each other Sunday near Kankakee, the FAA said Monday. The experienced controller and trainee involved in that incident were also sent for retraining.

Controllers in the Chicago region have said they are weary and more error-prone after having to work repeated six-day weeks due to staffing level changes. The FAA has said that staffing levels are adequate despite controllers' complaints.

"Quite simply, we do not have enough experienced controllers to handle the workload in our airspace with the margin of safety that is demanded from us every minute of every day," Jeff Richards, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association's representative at the Chicago Center, said Thursday in a statement.

Staffing was adequate on Wednesday, Molinaro said.