10

Loading video...

Dan Gooding

By Dan Gooding

Associate News Editor

0

Share

Newsweek is a Trust Project member

See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.

A near miss involving two passenger aircraft at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport has renewed scrutiny of runway safety at some of America's busiest airports and prompted fresh questions about how often serious aviation incidents occur on the ground.

The incident, which occurred Monday, is the latest in a series of high-profile airport close calls and collisions that have placed attention on runway incursions, taxiway snags and airport-surface safety.

Newsweek analysis of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) runway-incursion data found that several of the nation's largest hubs have recorded hundreds of runway-incursion events since 2001. The data, which covers more than 35,000 such events at 530 U.S. airports, was used to create the accompanying map showing airports with the highest totals.

Read More on U.S.

"Runway incursions went down by 8% in 2025, the lowest since 2020," an FAA spokesperson told Newsweek. "The decline is also a direct result of outreach and different surface safety technologies going in at airports all over the country."

FAA runway-incursion events include situations in which an aircraft, vehicle or person is incorrectly present on a protected runway area, ranging from low-risk incidents to serious close calls where a collision was narrowly avoided.

The airports with the highest totals in the data set include major commercial hubs such as Chicago O'Hare International Airport, Los Angeles International Airport, Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Boston Logan International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, as well as several high-volume general aviation facilities.

Recent Airport Collisions and Close Calls

The latest incident happened July 27 at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, when two Delta Air Lines aircraft triggered onboard collision warnings after coming too close during a landing go-around and departure sequence.

The arriving flight abandoned its landing after another aircraft was slow to clear the runway, and later came into conflict with a departing Delta jet. Both aircraft landed safely and no injuries were reported, but the FAA has opened an investigation into the near miss.

The Atlanta incident comes amid a string of notable airport-surface accidents and near misses over the past two years.

One of the most serious occurred at LaGuardia Airport in March 2026, when an Air Canada Express collided with an airport fire truck on Runway 4. The crash killed both pilots and injured dozens of other people, making it one of the most severe airport-surface accidents in recent years.

Another major incident occurred at Atlanta in August 2024, when a Delta Air Lines Airbus A330 struck a Virgin Atlantic Airbus A350 while taxiing for departure. The collision caused substantial damage to the Virgin Atlantic aircraft, although there were no reported injuries among the more than 600 passengers and crew aboard the two jets.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) later determined the Delta crew incorrectly assessed the available wingtip clearance while turning onto an adjacent taxiway.

Boston Logan International Airport has also experienced multiple headline-grabbing events. In February 2024, two JetBlue Airbus A321 aircraft collided on the ground, causing substantial damage but no injuries. In June 2026, a Delta crew aborted a landing after another aircraft was cleared onto an intersecting runway, avoiding what investigators described as a potentially catastrophic collision.

Chicago Midway International Airport was the scene of another widely publicized close call in February 2025, when a Southwest Airlines aircraft initiated a go-around after another aircraft entered the runway. The incident became one of several recent runway-incursion investigations involving busy commercial airports.

How Many Plane Crashes Occur Each Year?

The NTSB maintains records of aviation accidents and incidents dating back to 1962, while the FAA separately tracks runway incursions and other operational safety events. The NTSB database contains tens of thousands of aviation accident and incident records, although only a small fraction involve major commercial passenger airlines.

Fatal crashes involving large U.S. passenger airlines remain relatively rare compared with the volume of flights conducted each year.

By contrast, runway incursions, close calls, and airport-surface incidents occur far more frequently, though the overwhelming majority do not result in fatalities. FAA data shows 35,308 runway-incursion events were recorded between 2001 and mid-2026.

An Air Canada Express plane sits on the tarmac after it collided with a fire truck on the tarmac at LaGuardia Airport on March 23 in New York City.

...

Airports With Most Collisions in Recent Years

In addition to the fatal LaGuardia runway collision, investigators have continued examining the January 2025 crash near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, where an American Eagle regional jet and a U.S. Army helicopter collided, killing all 67 people aboard the two aircraft. The NTSB concluded the FAA's handling of helicopter routes near the airport contributed to the accident.

The LaGuardia crash, meanwhile, reignited debate over airport vehicle movements, runway-crossing procedures and collision-prevention systems at some of the country's busiest airports.

Actual aircraft collisions are far less common than runway incursions, but several airports have experienced notable events over the past two years.

Among the airports appearing repeatedly in recent NTSB investigations are:

Airports with large traffic volumes tend to record the highest totals simply because they handle far more aircraft movements than smaller facilities.

Recovery teams search the wreckage after the crash of an American Airlines plane on the Potomac River as it approached the airport on January 31, 2025, in Arlington, Virginia.

...

What's a Runway Incursion and Why Are They on the Rise?

The map accompanying this story does not show plane crashes. Instead, it is based on FAA runway-incursion data, which tracks incidents involving the incorrect presence of an aircraft, vehicle or person on a protected runway area.

These events range from relatively minor operational mistakes to serious close calls in which a collision was narrowly avoided. The FAA classifies runway incursions by severity, from Category D events with no immediate safety consequences to Category A incidents involving an imminent collision risk.

Runway incursions have become a growing focus for aviation regulators and investigators in recent years. The NTSB has repeatedly highlighted concerns about serious Category A and B events, which involve a significant potential for collision or situations in which a collision was narrowly avoided. NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said during a runway-incursion safety roundtable that the agency has investigated multiple serious close calls in recent years and has pushed for additional safety measures designed to reduce the risk of collisions on airport surfaces.

Experts caution, however, that airports appearing at the top of the map are not necessarily the most dangerous. Large hubs such as Chicago O'Hare, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Charlotte handle hundreds of thousands of takeoffs, landings and taxi operations each year, creating more opportunities for incursions to occur.

As a result, airports with the highest traffic volumes often accumulate the highest number of incidents in raw totals, even if their risk on a per-flight basis remains low. FAA data show more than 35,000 runway-incursion events have been recorded at U.S. airports since 2001, but only a small fraction resulted in collisions or injuries.

The recent incidents in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, and New York have nevertheless renewed scrutiny of airport-surface safety. Investigators continue to examine whether these events represent a broader trend, the result of increasingly complex airport operations, or simply a higher level of attention being paid to incidents that may once have drawn little public notice.

What is clear is that federal regulators and the NTSB view runway incursions as an important aviation-safety issue because even a single mistake on the ground can have potentially catastrophic consequences.

View 0 Comments

Request Reprint & Licensing

Submit Correction

View Editorial & AI Guidelines