WASHINGTON — A White House plane with First Lady Michelle Obama on board came dangerously close to a collision with a military cargo jet after an air traffic controller’s mistake, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
The 737 presidential jet carrying the first lady and Dr. Jill Biden, the wife of Vice President Joe Biden, was forced to abort an attempted landing at Andrews Air Force Base on Monday as they returned from a trip to New York, federal officials told the Post.
Air traffic controllers at Andrews Air Force Base ordered the first lady’s plane to make a series of maneuvers to avoid contact with the 200-ton C-17 military jet as it approached the airport. Eventually, controllers decided to abort the 737’s scheduled landing after they determined the military plane would not have enough time to clear the runway before the presidential plane arrived.
The first lady’s plane was then ordered to circle the airport before finally landing safely.
According to the Post, the two planes were far closer than the five-mile distance required by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
“The FAA is investigating the incident. The Boeing 737 landed safely after executing the go around. The aircraft were never in any danger,” the agency said in a statement Tuesday.
As controllers at Andrews received a handoff from the Potomac Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility in Warrenton, Va., the two planes were only 3.08 miles apart, the paper reported.
“The manager and tower controller at Andrews did several things to try to increase the separation on final [approach] before ordering a go-around,” a senior FAA manager said, adding that the controller in Warrenton showed “really bad controller technique.”
“Not only did he get them too close, he told the [Andrews controller] that they were farther apart than they were,” he said.
This latest controversy comes in the wake of several widely-reported incidents of air traffic controllers falling asleep on the job. US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced new rules over the weekend to address the issue. The FAA also recently suspended an air traffic controller and his supervisor after the controller lost contact with an aircraft as he watched a movie on a personal video player.