When a passenger jet roaring down the runway toward takeoff at New York’s LaGuardia Airport had to slam on the brakes earlier this month because another plane was still on the runway, Renee Hoffner and all the other passengers were thrown forward in their seats.
Hoffner wound up in the emergency room the next day after the near miss on May 6 because her neck started hurting and her left arm went numb.
“The stop was as hard as any car accident I’ve been in,” Hoffner said.
Both the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board said Monday that they are investigating the incident in which a Republic Airways jet had to abort takeoff and slam to a stop because a United Airlines plane was still taxiing across the runway. The close call happened despite the airport being equipped with an advanced surface radar system that’s designed to help prevent such close calls.
In audio from the tower that ABC obtained from the website www.LiveATC.net, the air traffic controller said to the pilot of the Republic Airways jet: “Sorry, I thought United had cleared well before that.”
At the time that controller was directing the Republic Airways jet to takeoff, a ground controller on a different radio frequency was directing the United plane to a new taxiway after it missed the first one it was supposed to use to exit the runway.
When the passengers got off the plane after the close call at 12:35 a.m., Hoffner said the gate agents refused to even give them hotel vouchers for the night because they blamed the weather even though another passenger said she had an app on her phone that showed another plane was on the runway.
Hoffner said she’s been stuck in a customer service nightmare since the flight Republic was operating for American Airlines ended abruptly. She said neither the airline nor the FAA has answered her complaints while she continues to nurse the pinched nerve in her neck that the ER doctors identified.
Both the airlines and the airport referred questions to the FAA.
The number of close calls in recent years has created serious concerns for the FAA, NTSB and other safety experts. The NTSB’s investigation of a February 2023 close call in Austin highlighted the concerns, but there have been a number of other high-profile near misses. In one case, a Southwest Airlines jet coming in for a landing in Chicago narrowly avoided smashing into a business jet crossing the runway.
LaGuardia is one of just 35 airports across the country equipped with the FAA’s best technology to prevent such runway incursions. The ASDS-X system uses a variety of technology to help controllers track planes and vehicles on the ground. At the other 490 US airports with a control tower, air traffic controllers have to rely on more low-tech tools like a pair of binoculars to keep track of aircraft on the ground because the systems are expensive.
Expanding the systems to more airports is something Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy would like to do if Congress signs off on his multi-billion-dollar plan to overhaul the nation’s aging air traffic control system.
But it’s clear the technology is not perfect because close calls continue happening. The FAA is taking a number of additional steps to try to reduce the number of close calls, and it plans to install an additional warning system at LaGuardia in the future.
But the rate of runway incursions per 1 million takeoffs and landings has remained around 30 for a decade. The rate got as high as 35 in 2017 and 2018. But generally there are fewer than 20 of the most serious kind of incursions where a collision was narrowly avoided or there was a significant potential for a crash, according to the FAA. That number did hit 22 in 2023 but fell to just 7 last year.
To help, there are efforts to develop a system that will warn pilots directly about traffic on a runway instead of alerting the controller and relying on them to relay the warning. That could save precious seconds. But the FAA has not yet certified a system to warn pilots directly that Honeywell International has been developing for years.
The worst accident in aviation history occurred in 1977 on the Spanish island of Tenerife, when a KLM 747 began its takeoff roll while a Pan Am 747 was still on the runway; 583 people died when the planes collided in thick fog.
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Passenger jet had to abort takeoff to avoid runway collision at New York’s LaGuardia Airport
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Passenger jet had to abort takeoff to avoid runway collision at New York’s LaGuardia Airport
- Both the airlines and the airport referred questions to the FAA
Refugee firefighters in Mauritania battle bushfires to give back to the community that took them in
MBERA: The men move in rhythm, swaying in line and beating the ground with spindly tree branches as the sun sets over the barren and hostile Mauritanian desert. The crack of the wood against dry grass lands in unison, a technique perfected by more than a decade of fighting bushfires.
There is no fire today but the men — volunteer firefighters backed by the UN refugee agency — keep on training.
In this region of West Africa, bushfires are deadly. They can break out in the blink of an eye and last for days. The impoverished, vast territory is shared by Mauritanians and more than 250,000 refugees from neighboring Mali, who rely on the scarce vegetation to feed their livestock.
For the refugee firefighters, battling the blazes is a way of giving back to the community that took them in when they fled violence and instability at home in Mali.
Newcomers with an old tradition
Hantam Ag Ahmedou was 11 years old when his family left Mali in 2012 to settle in the Mbera refugee camp in Mauritania, 48 kilometers (30 miles) from the Malian border. Like most refugees and locals, his family are herders and once in Mbera, they saw how quickly bushfires spread and how devastating they can be.
“We said to ourselves: There is this amazing generosity of the host community. These people share with us everything they have,” he told The Associated Press. “We needed to do something to lessen the burden.”
His father started organizing volunteer firefighters, at the time around 200 refugees. The Mauritanians had been fighting bushfires for decades, Ag Ahmedou said, but the Malian refugees brought know-how that gave them an advantage.
“You cannot stop bushfires with water,” Ag Ahmedou said. “That’s impossible, fires sometimes break out a hundred kilometers from the nearest water source.”
Instead they use tree branches, he said, to smother the fire.
“That’s the only way to do it,” he said.
The volunteer ‘brigade’
Since 2018, the firefighters have been under the patronage of the UNHCR. The European Union finances their training and equipment, as well as the clearing of firebreak strips to stop the fires from spreading. The volunteers today count over 360 refugees who work with the region’s authorities and firefighters.
When a bushfire breaks out and the alert comes in, the firefighters jump into their pickup trucks and drive out. Once at the site of a fire, a 20-member team spreads out and starts pounding the ground at the edge of the blaze with acacia branches — a rare tree that has a high resistance to heat.
Usually, three other teams stand by in case the first team needs replacing.
Ag Ahmedou started going out with the firefighters when he was 13, carrying water and food supplies for the men. He helped put out his first fire when he was 18, and has since beaten hundreds of blazes.
He knows how dangerous the task is but he doesn’t let the fear control him.
“Someone has to do it,” he said. “If the fire is not stopped, it can penetrate the refugee camp and the villages, kill animals, kill humans, and devastate the economy of the whole region.”
A climate-vulnerable nation
About 90 percent of Mauritania is covered by the Sahara Desert. Climate change has accelerated desertification and increased the pressure on natural resources, especially water, experts say. The United Nations says tensions between locals and refugees over grazing areas is a key threat to peace.
Tayyar Sukru Cansizoglu, the UNHCR chief in Mauritania, said that with the effects of climate change, even Mauritanians in the area cannot find enough grazing land for their own cows and goats — so a “single bushfire” becomes life-threatening for everyone.
When the first refugees arrived in 2012, authorities cleared a large chunk of land for the Mbera camp, which today has more than 150,000 Malian refugees. Another 150,000 live in villages scattered across the vast territory, sometimes outnumbering the locals 10 to one.
Chejna Abdallah, the mayor of the border town of Fassala, said because of “high pressure on natural resources, especially access to water,” tensions are rising between the locals and the Malians.
Giving back
Abderrahmane Maiga, a 52-year-old member of the “Mbera Fire Brigade,” as the firefighters call themselves, presses soil around a young seedling and carefully pours water at its base.
To make up for the vegetation losses, the firefighters have started setting up tree and plant nurseries across the desert — including acacias. This year, they also planted the first lemon and mango trees.
“It’s only right that we stand up to help people,” Maiga said.
He recalls one of the worst fires he faced in 2014, which dozens of men — both refugees and host community members — spent 48 hours battling. By the time it was over, some of the volunteers had collapsed from exhaustion.
Ag Ahmedou said he was aware of the tensions, especially as violence in Mali intensifies and going back is not an option for most of the refugees.
He said this was the life he was born into — a life in the desert, a life of food scarcity and “degraded land” — and that there is nowhere else for him to go. Fighting for survival is the only option.
“We cannot go to Europe and abandon our home,” he said. “So we have to resist. We have to fight.”
There is no fire today but the men — volunteer firefighters backed by the UN refugee agency — keep on training.
In this region of West Africa, bushfires are deadly. They can break out in the blink of an eye and last for days. The impoverished, vast territory is shared by Mauritanians and more than 250,000 refugees from neighboring Mali, who rely on the scarce vegetation to feed their livestock.
For the refugee firefighters, battling the blazes is a way of giving back to the community that took them in when they fled violence and instability at home in Mali.
Newcomers with an old tradition
Hantam Ag Ahmedou was 11 years old when his family left Mali in 2012 to settle in the Mbera refugee camp in Mauritania, 48 kilometers (30 miles) from the Malian border. Like most refugees and locals, his family are herders and once in Mbera, they saw how quickly bushfires spread and how devastating they can be.
“We said to ourselves: There is this amazing generosity of the host community. These people share with us everything they have,” he told The Associated Press. “We needed to do something to lessen the burden.”
His father started organizing volunteer firefighters, at the time around 200 refugees. The Mauritanians had been fighting bushfires for decades, Ag Ahmedou said, but the Malian refugees brought know-how that gave them an advantage.
“You cannot stop bushfires with water,” Ag Ahmedou said. “That’s impossible, fires sometimes break out a hundred kilometers from the nearest water source.”
Instead they use tree branches, he said, to smother the fire.
“That’s the only way to do it,” he said.
The volunteer ‘brigade’
Since 2018, the firefighters have been under the patronage of the UNHCR. The European Union finances their training and equipment, as well as the clearing of firebreak strips to stop the fires from spreading. The volunteers today count over 360 refugees who work with the region’s authorities and firefighters.
When a bushfire breaks out and the alert comes in, the firefighters jump into their pickup trucks and drive out. Once at the site of a fire, a 20-member team spreads out and starts pounding the ground at the edge of the blaze with acacia branches — a rare tree that has a high resistance to heat.
Usually, three other teams stand by in case the first team needs replacing.
Ag Ahmedou started going out with the firefighters when he was 13, carrying water and food supplies for the men. He helped put out his first fire when he was 18, and has since beaten hundreds of blazes.
He knows how dangerous the task is but he doesn’t let the fear control him.
“Someone has to do it,” he said. “If the fire is not stopped, it can penetrate the refugee camp and the villages, kill animals, kill humans, and devastate the economy of the whole region.”
A climate-vulnerable nation
About 90 percent of Mauritania is covered by the Sahara Desert. Climate change has accelerated desertification and increased the pressure on natural resources, especially water, experts say. The United Nations says tensions between locals and refugees over grazing areas is a key threat to peace.
Tayyar Sukru Cansizoglu, the UNHCR chief in Mauritania, said that with the effects of climate change, even Mauritanians in the area cannot find enough grazing land for their own cows and goats — so a “single bushfire” becomes life-threatening for everyone.
When the first refugees arrived in 2012, authorities cleared a large chunk of land for the Mbera camp, which today has more than 150,000 Malian refugees. Another 150,000 live in villages scattered across the vast territory, sometimes outnumbering the locals 10 to one.
Chejna Abdallah, the mayor of the border town of Fassala, said because of “high pressure on natural resources, especially access to water,” tensions are rising between the locals and the Malians.
Giving back
Abderrahmane Maiga, a 52-year-old member of the “Mbera Fire Brigade,” as the firefighters call themselves, presses soil around a young seedling and carefully pours water at its base.
To make up for the vegetation losses, the firefighters have started setting up tree and plant nurseries across the desert — including acacias. This year, they also planted the first lemon and mango trees.
“It’s only right that we stand up to help people,” Maiga said.
He recalls one of the worst fires he faced in 2014, which dozens of men — both refugees and host community members — spent 48 hours battling. By the time it was over, some of the volunteers had collapsed from exhaustion.
Ag Ahmedou said he was aware of the tensions, especially as violence in Mali intensifies and going back is not an option for most of the refugees.
He said this was the life he was born into — a life in the desert, a life of food scarcity and “degraded land” — and that there is nowhere else for him to go. Fighting for survival is the only option.
“We cannot go to Europe and abandon our home,” he said. “So we have to resist. We have to fight.”
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