the cause of these frightening close calls. reporter: the close calls involve air traffic controllers on each end of the country. may 9th in houston, united flight 601 was departing from vancouver on runway 9 as united flight 437 was leaving from mexico city on runway 15. the controller apparently made a serious mistake. 601, thank you, heading 340. instead of telling the vancouver flight to turn left he told him to turn right into the path of the other plane. the controller then quickly realized his mistake. united 601, stop your climbing and stop your turn, united 601. reporter: the planes came 400 feet vertically, .8 miles laterally. seconds away from disaster. arriving united 737 flew right over the top of a departing express jet regional flight that had been cleared for takeoff on an intersecting runway. do you have him in sight? maintain visual. oh, yeah, he s real close.
profile incident of airliners getting too close. something that happens every day. in april, two planes nearly collided over the runway at newark airport. 4100. the controllers directed a united airlines boeing 737 to land. as a smaller express jet was cleared for takeoff on an intersecting runway. the larger plane is nearly out of control when hthey tell it t circumstan circle. the day after this incident, a boeing 757 flying over the pacific came too close to another aircraft. after climbing to the altitude the air traffic controllers
CNN Wolf May 20, 2014 17:32:15 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.