Near-collision incidents involving airplanes may be going underreported

WARNING: If you’re flying soon, you may just wanna skip right to the end of this story.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way – you’ve probably already heard about how near-collision incidents at airports are rising this year. Which is, in fact, accurate.

• From 2018 to 2022, publicly available FAA data shows 23 incidents in which commercial passenger or cargo planes came close to colliding in the US. 2023 – with nine near misses or collisions as of mid-June – was previously on pace to rival that entire total.

But we, the public, may not be getting the full story.

• According to preliminary FAA safety reports not publicly disclosed but obtained by the NY Times, there were at least 46 close calls involving commercial airlines last month alone.
• A review of a database maintained by NASA that contains confidential safety reports filed by pilots, air traffic controllers, and others in aviation shows ~300 accounts of near collisions involving commercial airlines over the most recent 12-month period for which data was available.

🖐️ But, but, but: These are preliminary reports, not necessarily ones that have been thoroughly reviewed. And even if all checked out as valid at the higher reported numbers, near-misses would apply to a tiny amount of the ~16.4 million flights to/from the US each year.

Plus, the results of America’s flight safety regulations, with its Swiss Cheese model containing built-in redundancies, are pretty strong overall. There hasn’t been a fatal crash involving a major US airline since February 2009, the longest streak in the history of American aviation.