Transportation secretary says pilot error played a role in most recent plane crashes and near-misses
Pilot error played a role in most of the high-profile plane crashes and close calls in the last few weeks, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said.
Pilot error played a role in the majority of high-profile plane crashes and close calls in the last few weeks, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Thursday as he called for pilots to face serious consequences when they disregard air traffic controllers.
Duffy said in an interview that pilots should lose their licenses if they do not follow instructions from air traffic controllers, which is what he said appeared to happen in the latest near-collision Tuesday between a private jet and a Southwest Airlines plane in Chicago. No one was injured.
“A consequence-free space where you make errors, serious errors, and you don’t pay any kind of price for it, something’s wrong with that,” Duffy said. “And maybe this is the way we get pilots to start paying attention again and following the direction of air traffic controllers.”
Duffy was trying to calm fears that the skies are increasingly unsafe after a series of deadly aircraft crashes and near-collisions over the past few weeks, starting with the midair collision of a helicopter and a passenger jet landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, D.C., which killed 67 people.
An NBC News analysis of federal data shows the incidents and deaths on flights have not been rising compared with previous years.
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