After five close calls, air traffic control considers new rules to prevent crashes

Federal accident investigators are urging the adoption of new air traffic control procedures for handling aborted landings after five near collisions involving airliners.

The National Transportation Safety Board said in a letter Monday to the Federal Aviation Administration that current procedures should be modified so that in cases where two planes are departing at once, controllers shouldn’t also clear a plane to land at a time it would create the potential for a collision if the flight crew of the landing plane decides to abort the landing and go around for another attempt.

NTSB said there were four such near collisions last year: two in Las Vegas, and one each in New York and Charlotte, N.C. There was also a similar near collision in Las Vegas in 2006.