Amid a significant uptick in near-miss incidents at airports across the country, then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg pushed for his department to focus on equity.
On February 4, 2023, a FedEx cargo plane nearly crashed into a Southwest Airlines passenger plane on a runway in Austin, Texas. That same day, Buttigieg, who is reportedly considering a 2028 presidential run, posted a video in celebration of “transit equity.”
Disaster was only averted in Austin after the FedEx plane pulled up about 190 feet away from the Southwest plane, which had been spotted by a pilot of the FedEx craft. Both had been cleared to use the runway at the same time by an air traffic controller. The National Safety Transportation Board said one of the primary causes for the near-collision was due to the air traffic controller’s “expectation” that the Southwest plane would have taken off earlier than it did.
As that situation developed in Austin, Buttigieg posted videos in honor of “Transit Equity Day.”
“Transit is not just about getting from A to B, it’s about reaching jobs, education, health care, and so much more,” Buttigieg wrote on X. “On this Transit Equity Day, we reinforce our commitment to transportation systems that serve those who count on them the most.”
Transit is not just about getting from A to B, it’s about reaching jobs, education, health care, and so much more.
On this Transit Equity Day, we reinforce our commitment to transportation systems that serve those who count on them the most. pic.twitter.com/yh2irNcSEB
— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) February 4, 2023
He shared the video alongside Nuria Fernandez, who was then the administrator of the Federal Transit Administration. In that video, she said that the Department of Transportation’s priorities were “equity, accessibility, climate change.”
As Buttigieg was promoting equity, a safety crisis was brewing in aviation. The first two months of 2023 saw at least six near-miss incidents recorded by the FAA. These incidents were happening at a “faster pace” than the previous five years combined, according to a POLITICO analysis.
Just two weeks later, another near-miss occurred at Logan Airport in Boston after a near-collision between a JetBlue passenger jet and a private aircraft which took off without authorization.
The increase in near-misses prompted the Federal Aviation Authority to convene a safety convention in March where NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy ripped into them for not adopting safety recommendations that she had given them.
“We’ve essentially given you the road map on how to improve safety,” Homendy said, adding that ignored recommendations are “the most frustrating thing for us.”
“Too often we’ve seen the federal government and industry act after an incident, after lives are lost, once headlines are made,” Homendy said. “Our entire mission at the NTSB is to prevent that next accident.”
At the same convention, Buttigieg said that he was worried about the increase in close calls.
“While the data remains clear that aviation remains an exceptionally safe form of travel, we take nothing for granted and we are particularly concerned because we have seen an uptick in serious close calls,” he said.
Near-misses continued to be reported throughout 2023 and 2024, with growing concerns about airline safety, which only intensified after 67 people died in January of this year after an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines flight over the Potomac River.
The NTSB released a report on the deadly crash this week, urging the helicopter route that the Black Hawk was on the night of the crash to be shut down if certain runways at Reagan National Airport were in use. The report found that there were over 15,000 close calls between October 2021 and December 2024 between planes and helicopters on that route.
The Trump administration, which has moved to eliminate equity-focused initiatives from the federal government, has said that it plans to comply with the NTSB recommendations. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy pledged Tuesday to implement all of the NTSB recommendations, including continuing the ban on the helicopter route that caused the January crash.
Duffy also said he would take steps to move the FAA from its reliance on dated technology and would work to move it away from floppy disks and copper wires.
He promised that increased safety measures would be taken to increase runway safety, which has been a contributing factor in many of the close calls.
“We are going to deploy resources for runway safety, new technology that will allow our air traffic controllers not to use binoculars in the tower to see where aircraft are at, but to actually have ground radar sensors at our airports that will allow air traffic controllers to see where airplanes are at and better control their movements,” he said.
