Flight from Omaha ends in a near collision
Are flights in the US becoming more dangerous?
On Feb. 25, 2025, passengers boarded a plane from Omaha’s Eppley Airfield heading to Chicago’s Midway International Airport. The temperature was in the upper 30s, feeling significantly warmer than the negative 15 degrees of week prior. The plane departed from Gate 4 minutes earlier than planned. It was 7:45 am when the Southwest Airlines Flight 2504 took off from the airport. It was just another Tuesday morning flight, what could go wrong? It was around 8:48 am when the Boeing jet engaged their landing gear in preparation for landing, this is when they noticed a small aircraft crossing the runway. The Southwest pilot made the wise decision to abort the landing and circled the airport to get a clear landing. The aircraft was going 152 mph at an altitude of 925 feet when the pilot aborted the initial landing by ascending over 3000 feet in three minutes. Those on board may have been a bit concerned but those who have been on many flights may have experienced an aborted landing before, also known as a go-around. Go-arounds happen around 1 to 3 times per 1000 flights. Those on board may have not been aware of the danger until departing the aircraft and seeing the incident on the news.
The small aircraft in the middle of the runway turned out to be a business jet operated by a private airline — Flexjet. The business jet entered the runway without proper authorization, violating the safety standards. An ideal safe distance would have been 1,000 feet vertical distance and 4 nautical miles horizontally. The incident may sound frightening but it wouldn’t be considered a Near Midair Collision (NMAC). For it to be classified as an NMAC, the two aircraft must be less than 500 feet from each other, unintentionally, and the closest they got was well over 500 feet. A NMAC happens more often than people expect. From 2016 to 2020 there have been 1450 reported NMACs in America. That amounts to an average of 290 incidents per year or almost one incident per day. Critical NMACs are classified as an aircraft unintentionally being separated by less than 100 feet. From 2016 to 2020, there were about 185 incidents which amounts to a little over three incidents every month. When American Airlines Flight 5342 had a mid-air collision after striking a U.S. Army Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter on Jan. 29, 2025, many were wondering how it happened. The question that should have been posed is why hasn’t it happened more often? It is unclear how many NMACs go unreported and it only reflects flights in America.
All of this information may scare people from flying. Deciding to dive over flying for safety reasons is a critical error. In 2022, for every 200 million miles traveled by vehicles, there will be 2.66 deaths. For every 200 million miles traveled by plane, there are 0.006 deaths. In 2022, 19 people died as a result of air travel in America compared to 42,514 vehicle fatalities. In this comparison, planes don’t seem that bad. It’s speculated that as many as 353 fatalities occurred on highways as a result of the 9/11 flight scare. Perhaps the real reason plane crashes seem so dangerous is because there is a sense of not being in control. Many concerned flyers ask, “Why does it seem like there are so many crashes this year?” The reason is that news outlets know consumers are interested in plane incidents since the mid-air collision by American Airlines Flight 5342. Aviation incidents aren’t going up; in fact, they are down when compared to the same period of Jan.1 to Feb. 21, 2024. Fear pays when it comes to reporting shocking news. Eventually, people will stop caring about plane crashes and move on to something else to fear. In 2020, people were scared of the pandemic and news outlets capitalized on this. In 2023, when the train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio news outlets pumped out every single train derailment. Breaking news, trains are still derailing but nobody cares anymore because that was two years ago. Anybody who believes that planes are significantly more dangerous may be influenced by media manipulation
By: Stuart Cuateco