Fear of Flying

As they prepared for the Christmas holiday last week, some Americans suffered second thoughts about traveling by air. Much of their fear of flying was caused by the recent and widely publicized spate of near collisions involving commercial airliners. On Thanksgiving Eve, 24 people were injured when an American Airlines jet dived just in time to avert a collision with a Trans World Airlines plane over Michigan. A fortnight ago, another pair of planes, one a TWA, the other a United Air Lines jet, passed within 300 ft. of each other as both were heading for Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. There were other close calls in the Chicago area that day. Shortly before the two big jets avoided disaster, a twin-engine Cessna en route to a small field north of O'Hare crossed in front of a North Central Airways turboprop. Later, a privately owned Jet Commander descended through the path of another TWA aircraft.

Considering the amount of traffic in some of the nation's air space, it should be no surprise that such near accidents occur. What is surprising, given the chances for mechanical and human failure both on the ground and in the cockpit, is that there are so few collisions. Of 81 fatal accidents suffered by airlines during the past decade, only seven involved collisions.

That remarkably good record can be attributed largely to improvement in air-traffic control. Until the mid-1960s, air-traffic controllers had to rely on old-fashioned radar to scan the skies and keep track of moving "blips" that represented individual aircraft. Now the controllers' vision has been increased enormously by improved radar and new electronic gadgetry. Every aircraft that flies above 18,000 ft. and in designated control areas carries a radar transponder that answers ground radar by flashing an identifying signal. The ground radar is assisted by banks of computers that display on the radar screen right next to each blip a printed data block containing the aircraft's identification, flight number, altitude and speed. With that information a controller can determine when one plane is getting too close to another. Control is now being further improved by a new system called conflict alert (C.A.).

The computers that keep track of the aircraft also search for planes within two minutes' flying time of a hazardous situation. When they find one, they flash a warning to the air-traffic controller, who can then give one or both planes directions to avoid an accident. C.A. has already gone into operation at the Denver, Fort Worth, Kansas City and Memphis air-route traffic control centers. FAA officials are now planning to speed up the installation schedule at other control centers.

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