Near Miss over O'Hare International

At about 10pm on Sunday night, United Flight 1015, a 737 carrying 120 passengers and 5 crew, departed from Chicago's O'Hare International for Denver. At the same time, an unknown cargo 747 was landing on an intersecting runway. It's estimated that the two planes missed each other by a mere 300 feet. The FAA is saying controller error allowed the 747 to land while the 737 was taking off.

A cargo plane and a departing passenger jet came within several hundred feet of each other at O'Hare International Airport, federal aviation officials said Monday.

United Airlines flight 1015 was departing for Denver about 10 p.m. Sunday when it flew over a Boeing 747 cargo plane that had just landed on an intersecting runway.

No injuries were reported.

United's Boeing 737 was carrying 120 passengers and five crew members, said Brandon Borrman, a spokesman for the Elk Grove Village-based carrier.

www.suntimes.com...

Wow, that was a near thing! Amazing how in this day and age conflicts like this still happen. I remember having to go around once when a Cessna decided to cross the main runway when we were on short finals. Scary stuff.

Thats not good at all and im glad there was no harm, I guess at least this will shead some light in this and hopefully prevent an accident in the future,

Its pretty sad when it takes a Near accident like this to do that,



[edit on 25-7-2006 by asala]

The number of Runway Incursions is actually quite small, just that planes are getting so big now that if they do collide, you're looking at 800 possible casualties. They are working on a system to prevent them from happening, but there's still a human element involved, and as long as there is you're looking at the potential for a human error accident.

Am I to understand that the identity of the cargo plane is unknown to authorities? Or is it simply unknown to the reporter who filed this story?

I'm curious..anyone got any information on this facet of the story?

It wasn't released at the time of the printing of the story. All the information I can find simply says "cargo 747". It WOULD be interesting to see who it belongs to and why they're not releasing the name.

What is the security like in the tower at a place like O'Hare?

It seems like terrorists could wreak quite the havoc if they were able to access a place like that...and it might be easier to get in there than to get into the driver's seat of a 747 these days.

There's a picture of Atlas Air with one of the articles. It hasn't been said that's who it was for sure, but that's a little interesting considering that Atlas is rumored to be tied to the CIA.

Such things at O'Hare is nothing new. There is alway an near miss every couple of weeks/months. The airport is too conjested.