A potential air disaster was averted, Friday, after an air traffic controller at Phoenix Airport in the US state of Arizona was alerted that two American Airlines planes were mistakenly carrying the same flight number, prompting him to act quickly to avoid any confusion and maintain a safe distance between them.
An audio recording of the incident, which occurred shortly after midnight on Friday, showed how the controller dealt with the situation to ensure that the required safe distance remained between the two planes, after it turned out that both had flight number “American 2482.”
One of the two planes was coming from Chicago, while the other plane had taken off shortly before from Phoenix Airport.
After one of the two planes left the area safely, the controller said that he has been working in the field of air traffic control for 25 years, and he had never encountered a situation in which two planes used almost the same call sign, describing what happened as unbelievable.
The danger lay in the possibility that the pilots of the two planes believed that the instructions issued by the controller were directed to them both to fly at the same altitude, while they were heading towards each other, which would have raised the possibility of a collision, which made a clear distinction between the two planes necessary.
The audio recording, published by the website ATC.com, which specializes in air traffic control, showed that the controller quickly began using the phrases “arriving American 2482” and “departing American 2482,” to clearly distinguish between the two planes.
The controller kept the arriving plane at a higher altitude than the departing plane, even though their paths were close, and he also made sure that the pilots of the two planes were able to see each other when they were still several miles apart.
He also directed the departing aircraft not to climb to a high altitude, in order to maintain a distance between it and the arriving aircraft.
The superintendent later said the consequences could have been disastrous, expressing relief that matters had ended without incident.
