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May 23rd, 2014
10:21 PM ET
FAA investigating two jetliners' near miss at Houston airport
New reports of another terrifying near collision in the sky.
The FAA is investigating how two united airlines flights with hundreds of passengers on board came just seconds away from slamming into each other.
The planes were less than a mile apart above Houston. This is at least the fourth time in just the past month that two planes almost collided mid-air.
FAA investigates near miss between jets at Houston airport
It's a troubling trend as millions of Americans head to the airport tonight. Memorial day travel is expected to reach a record high this weekend.
But how does a near mid-air collision happen?
Tom Foreman steps inside the CNN virtual room to see exactly how close the planes in Houston came to a mid-air collision.
The FAA increasing operational error (loss of required separation) situation is caused by two main problem areas. The first is called "ATSAP", it's a program where controllers can't be disciplined for an operational error if the controller comes forward and reports it to FAA management.
The second area is that senior FAA management. They won't support controllers and Front Line Managers and terminate trainees that can't do the job. FAA managers are not required to have similar air traffic control experience as the controllers under their supervision and often don't even understand the job and associated problems that the controllers face.
In contradiction to the last comment on the video, there has been a mid air collision between a Russian charter flight and a DHL 757 over Germany in 2002. The Russian crew followed the guidance of a Swiss air traffic controller instead of the opposing guidance from their TCAS which was coordinating evasive maneuvers with the TCAS on the DHL flight.