Aircraft involved in 25 'near midair collisions' over Long Island and Queens since 2019, analysis finds

After a midair near miss with another aircraft over Queens in April, the pilot of a corporate jet wrote, "We were close enough to read the tail number of the other aircraft."

A commercial passenger jet pilot, describing a separate incident while descending into LaGuardia last August, wrote: "There is no doubt in my mind we would have hit that aircraft" were it not "for our situational awareness."

Pilots, air traffic controllers and dispatchers reported at least 25 "near midair collisions" over Long Island and Queens over the past six years, according to a Newsday analysis of a database maintained by the Federal Aviation Administration and NASA. Thirteen of those cases involved commercial passenger planes, including five cases where an airplane nearly hit another airplane or helicopter, and eight cases where an airplane nearly hit a drone. That's in addition to 12 near misses that involved private, government or other general aviation aircraft — six of which also involved drones.

The recent collision between a passenger jet and a military helicopter that killed 67 people near Washington, D.C. have renewed attention around airspace safety in a federal aviation system that handles 45,000 flights a day across the country.

The near miss reports, which are submitted under an agreement that protects reporting parties' anonymity and shields them from disciplinary action, are sometimes harrowing. Most blame the near misses on procedural issues or miscommunication between air traffic controllers and pilots.

A national independent team of experts commissioned by the FAA in 2023 found "an erosion of safety margins that must be urgently addressed," but also noted this "is not to say that the system is unsafe." The team recommended a number of changes, including ensuring consistent congressional funding for the FAA, upgrading technology at airports and hiring more air traffic controllers to combat a staff shortage — particularly at New York facilities.

Since the D.C. crash, the Trump administration has signaled intent to make major changes to the air traffic control system. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced on X that Elon Musk — who has long clashed with the FAA over its attempts to regulate SpaceX — and his Department of Government Efficiency are "going to plug in to help upgrade our aviation system." The administration sent a buyout offer to federal workers, including all FAA employees, on Jan. 28, but later said air traffic controllers were not eligible, nor are they subject to a federal hiring freeze that started Jan. 20, The Associated Press reported.

However, experts point out that the risks air of travel have drastically decreased in recent decades and are much lower than other forms of transportation, including driving.

Brian Roggow, associate dean of the College of Aviation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona, said the near misses should be taken seriously, but also be seen in the context of the millions of flights that have taken off or landed over that period. "It doesn't raise the hairs on my back," he said, adding the reports offer "good perspective about the experiences of pilots" and others who submit them so that the industry can learn and grow.

The FAA did not respond to Newsday’s inquiry about whether it has conducted formal investigations of Long Island-area incidents or potential changes at the agency.

1 in 100 million risk

The risk of a fatality to any individual boarding a commercial aircraft in the United States is about 1 in 100 million, according to Arnold Barnett, a statistics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"If you see a little kid — let's say at LaGuardia, Kennedy or Islip — about to get on a flight, that kid is five times as likely to grow up to be president as to perish on the forthcoming flight," he told Newsday.

Barnett said the risk of flying has been declining for decades and is now around 750 times less than it was in the 1940s.

Though the region has not seen a major midair collision since August 2009 — when a helicopter and small plane collided over the Hudson River, killing nine — Newsday found 13 reports of near midair collisions involving commercial air carriers near LaGuardia, Kennedy and Republic airports between 2019 and 2023. Eight of those incidents involved passenger planes nearly striking drones while five involved passenger planes nearly striking other manned aircraft. 

The 13 commercial incidents make up almost 4% of the roughly 360 place-specific commercial incidents reported nationwide over the same period (an additional roughly 190 incidents in the database have no specific location data). 

Roggow said that across the country, near midair collisions can be caused by a variety of factors.

"Occasionally it is an air traffic control facility. Occasionally it is equipment malfunctioning. Occasionally it is certain pilots" that make mistakes, and sometimes it's other factors, he said.

The FAA and NASA’s incident database show the month and year, but not the exact day of each event. The FAA notes on its website that not all near misses get reported, and the data are to some degree subjective because what alarms one pilot or controller might not appear so dangerous to another.

Ways forward

Commercial aircraft in the United States are required to carry transponders that directly communicate with similar devices aboard other aircraft that warn of potential collisions and can even instruct pilots on evasive maneuvers.

The technology, known as TCAS, has greatly enhanced safety since it became mandatory in the 1990s, though it doesn't work at low altitudes — usually below around 1,000 feet — Arnold said.

"Midair collisions have pretty much gone away, with the exception of events like the one we had at Reagan airport," he said. "And there, the problem is, at the very low altitudes, the TCAS doesn't really work."

Especially on ascents and descents, pilots depend on support from the FAA’s air traffic controllers to coordinate movements among multiple aircraft. Controllers work not only from airport towers but also at radar facilities like the New York Terminal Radar Approach Control in Westbury and the Air Route Traffic Control Center in Ronkonkoma.

The 2023 expert safety review commissioned by the FAA noted air traffic controllers are often operating with outdated infrastructure and technology, like instrument landing systems used for final approaches that are typically over 25 years old.

The safety panel also called for more consistent congressional funding, noting that federal furloughs and other uncertainties make it difficult to hire, train and retain air traffic controllers. That report and another 2023 report by Department of Transportation’s inspector general also found severe understaffing among air traffic controllers nationwide and in New York in particular, with the Westbury facility operating at only 54% of the required staffing levels recommended by a team of FAA and controller union representatives.

Michael McCormick, a professor of air traffic management at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's Florida campus and a former head of the FAA radar facility in Ronkonkoma, said as facilities rely heavily on controllers and trainees to work overtime, it can be "wearing" on staff.

"It causes concerns about controllers getting proper rest," he said in an interview.

When a near midair collision happens, pilots are encouraged to submit an anonymous report to the NASA database for learning purposes. The FAA must investigate incidents if aircraft came within 500 feet of each other or if a pilot explicitly states they want an investigation. 

Likewise, pilots are required to report near misses to the National Transportation Safety Board under certain conditions when a TCAS system issues a warning to take an evasive maneuver. None of the cases mentioned in this article have been investigated by the NTSB. The FAA, which has not updated its database of near midair collision investigations since 2021, did not respond to Newsday's inquiry if it did so.

McCormick said he thinks the reporting system is effective at helping the FAA and its partners improve safety.

"It works very well. There have been numerous changes to air space and procedures across the country as a result of analysis coming from the safety management system," he said.