Michelle Obama's plane forced to abort landing after near miss with another carrier
Michelle Obama's plane forced to abort landing after near miss with another carrierAn official plane carrying US First Lady Michelle Obama had to abort a landing at an air force base near Washington on Monday because of an air traffic controller's error, US media reported. The aircraft carrying her was too close to a 200-ton military cargo jet and had to scrap its final approach to Andrews Air Force Base, a key hub for top US government officials including President Barack Obama, the reports said. "The aircraft was never in any danger," the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement that confirmed an incident at Andrews but did not explicitly say the First Lady was aboard the aircraft directed to veer off.
Mid-air scare: Owing to a traffic controller's error, Michelle Obama's
plane would have crashed into another. File picJill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, also was on the aircraft. Controllers at Andrews worried that, as a result of other air traffic officials' mistake, the massive C-17 would not clear the runway at the facility swiftly enough for the First Lady's Boeing 737 to land safely. The Andrews controllers ordered Michelle Obama's flight ufffd bearing the EXEC1F designation as an aircraft carrying members of the president's family ufffd to execute a series of turns to put more distance between it and the cargo.
"FAA controllers at Andrews Air Force Base instructed an incoming Boeing 737 on approach to Runway 19 to perform a go around on Monday, just after 5 pm because the plane did not have the required amount of separation behind a military C17," the FAA said in its statement. The FAA requires eight kilometres between a C-17 and the next airplane, but the Obama's jet was just 4.8 kilometres away.
US air traffic controllers have faced heavy scrutiny recently after a series of incidents in which some fell asleep while on duty, leading officials to announce a new "zero tolerance" approach for such activities. Transportation officials monitoring some of the world's busiest air traffic have been red-faced as case after case of workers snoozing in US airport towers came to light in recent weeks, in some incidents leaving pilots of passenger jets to land unassisted in Washington.
Live on FacebookYesterday, US President Barack Obama went live on Facebook Chat and answered questions. He visited Facebook's Palo Alto headquarters, with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg moderating. With this visit, Obama has become the first serving head of state to visit Facebook headquarters. The US president is a fan of Facebook.
