‘The right stuff and more’: What happened in near miss at Midway Airport

As Dennis Tajer watched the video of a Southwest Airlines jet preparing to land at Midway International Airport as a smaller jet taxis into its path, he thought, “Oh no.”

Then, “I thought, ‘Heroes,’” said Tajer, a spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, which represents American Airlines aviators.

Southwest pilots quickly pulled the Boeing 737 into a climb Tuesday morning, avoiding a disaster on the airport’s runway.

It was “the right stuff and more,” said Tajer, a commercial pilot from Arlington Heights.

“Two pilots in a matter of less than seconds had to make a decision that saved lives, and they did it,” he added. “It’s an affirmation that the system ultimately can work but it should never be pushed to that close of a margin.”

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the runway incursion that led to the near collision. Last week, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said on Fox News it appears the flight crew on the smaller Flexjet plane failed to follow the Midway air traffic controller’s instructions.

“They were supposed to line up and wait and hold short of Runway (31-Center), which Southwest was landing on and they failed to do so,” she said.

The Southwest jet executed what’s known as a go-around to avoid a collision.

Aviators approaching a runway look for “anomalies outside of the airplane. It could be birds, it could be an airplane, it could be traffic, could be somebody running across the runway, it could be a host of things,” Lewis University Aviation Associate Dean and Professor R. Eric Jones explained.

“When you get down to the runway environment … if you have any question or concern about your ability to successfully land that airplane, you can initiate a go-around.”

It’s an involved procedure. Pilots must “bring the landing gear up, retract the flaps, pitch the airplane up and fly a heading back all the way around the airport, and you get in line again to shoot another approach — but it is a very common thing that happens.”

Tuesday’s drama was rare, however.

“Normally, air traffic does not get that far down on the approach before making a go-around decision,” Jones said. “Midway is a one-mile by one-mile airport. There’s not a lot of room for error.”

Pilots train to execute go-arounds, Tajer noted. “But training and actually doing it at a moment’s notice is another thing.

“The narrow window of decision that they had to make was probably less than a second to keep that airplane from going into landing mode. It was truly a near-instantaneous and spectacular performance that saved lives.”

The close call follows a fatal crash Jan. 29 between an American Airlines jet and U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., and the rollover landing of a Delta Air Lines plane at Pearson International Airport in Toronto on Feb. 17, which caused injuries.

With spring break holidays imminent, should air travelers worry?

“It’s still the safest form of travel — there’s a one-in-11 million chance of something happening to you on an airplane, with 10,000 flight operations a day,” Jones said.

“We’re not worried. We know the system is built to trap these threats,” Tajer added.

At the same time, many airports are understaffed, even as pressure builds on controllers to push through flights, and on airlines to meet market demand and provide on-time service, he noted.

“Very easily commercial interests, (like) ‘let’s be on time,’ can seep into the safety decisions. It’s insidious,” Tajer said. “So we need the continued leadership affirmation that safety isn’t just a slogan, it’s how we do business.”

At a recent briefing, U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth warned, “we urgently need to grow our aviation safety workforce to keep the flying public safe.

“Meanwhile, at Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s direction, the Federal Aviation Administration abruptly fired hundreds of employees without notifying Congress, claiming that many were probationary,” the Hoffman Estates Democrat and former Illinois Army National Guard pilot said.

On Thursday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced a “supercharged” air traffic controller hiring opportunity through March 17 while touring the FAA Academy.

“I witnessed firsthand the dedication, skill, and rigor that our future air traffic controllers bring to their training and the urgent need to do all that we can to recruit more people to join in our shared mission of safety in our skies,” Duffy said in a statement.