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An investigation is underway after several flight crews about to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport over the weekend received mid-air collision alerts when there were no other aircraft nearby, ABC News reports.
The Federal Aviation Administration said air traffic control audio indicates the alerts happened only miles from the site of January’s deadly mid-air collision between an American Airlines flight and a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter.
Sixty-seven people, including the Charlotte-based flight crew, died in that crash.
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“We got a couple traffic advisories...we didn’t see anybody,” one air traffic controller said during the confusion on Saturday.
A source told ABC News six planes reported receiving warnings, with three saying they were forced to perform go-arounds.
The traffic collision avoidance systems in cockpits known as TCAS are meant to tell pilots if their plane is in danger of colliding with another aircraft, ABC News transportation correspondent Gio Benitez reports.
As of Tuesday morning, ABC News said there was no word on why those planes received false alerts.
“It’s a potential major distraction of a flight crew at a very critical time, a flight which is landing,” aviation analyst John Nance said. “You don’t want all of a sudden to be looking for traffic on one side or the other. You want to be concentrating on the runway.”
Nance added, “So, if these are not real warnings and they haven’t been they’re distracting and they’re dangerous.”
Airlines for America, a trade group for major U.S. airlines, is set to testify before a XXX Tuesday, calling for the permanent suspension of some helicopter routes near Reagan National Airport.
ABC News reports the group also wants all military aircraft to broadcast their exact location near airports to avoid collisions.
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