The weather was about as bad as it gets, in terms of dense fog. The pilots of a FedEx cargo plane couldn’t see the runway or the airfield at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. But they’re trained for such “Category III” approaches — an automated approach when pilots don’t need to see to land, as long as everything in the aircraft is functioning properly. And it was.But human error in the air traffic control tower and a lack of critical safety technology brought the plane within about 150 feet (46 meters) of a Southwest Airlines plane carrying 128 people, according to a National Transportation Safety Board report about the February 4, 2023, incident.”I saw the silhouette of the other airplane, which is when I called … ‘Go around. Go around. Go around,’ ” First Officer Robert Bradeen told CNN’s Pete Muntean, in the first TV interview about the incident.”It was definitely a …
Categories