A Southwest jet and a FedEx cargo plane evaded a crash on a runway at Austin's runway as the two planes were within 100 feet of each other.
According to Jennifer Homendy, the chair of the NTSB, unlike New York's largest airport, Austin does not have technology that can sensor danger in the skies.
“Air traffic controllers in Austin could see the FedEx plane coming in, but couldn’t actually see where the Southwest plane was in relation to the FedEx plane because the Southwest plane was on the ground,” Homendy said. “Had they had that technology … they would have been able to see both the FedEx flight and the Southwest flight.”
Although the dense fog may be a factor in the incident, the final report details an air traffic controller's bout of "expectational bias," assuming the Southwest plane would take off sooner.
