Plane with first lady came too close to cargo jet

Was the person at the radar facility ASLEEP?? Seems to be a theme lately!!!

Wow, three miles -- close call! ;-)

An aborted landing huh...... I wonder if that changes the Obama's view on abortion!

I thought the story was the stupidest thing I've ever read, but then n111ma posted.

Oh come on Chippy.... Where's your sense of humor?

Nlll-your original comment was totally uncalled for!

The FAA is sending the Obamas a message.

I just hope the anti-controller hysteria out there doesn't lead LaHood to fire the controller for doing his job and sending the 737 around.

it isn't anti-controller hysteria....if the controllers in question had been DOING their jobs instead of catching z's there wouldn't be all this attention on them in the first place!

FOR THE THIRD TIME TODAY, this is NOT NEWS!!!! for all of you pilots on here, how many times in a week or a month does ATC ask you to go do a 360 or 2 for spacing?? other than air force one, i cannnot see this as newsworthy, even if a few dumb asses cannot drink a cup of coffee, and stay awake for their shift.

Well, as Bill Voss says in the stry, it happens evry day. Per TTail her in the comments, if you haven't ever been told to go around, you haven't flown long. They may be a little closeness from time to tim on the radar but the Andrews contoller did just exactly right by ordering the go around. Actually with the 737's stopping distance, he probably would have made it but the controller did right. Happens every day.

The other thing that is sad in this whole mess is that the flying public, most of them, have a pretty good awareness of how things are. All the outcry is being made by the occasional fliers or the ones that get on a plane and all they know is that they are going somewhere, not knowing anything about in between, like a lot of automobile drivers thes days.

whats so newsworthy with this as andrews is busy and doing a 360 there is normal like wayne says it does happen every day

Sad part really is that the non flying public don't seem to realize that you just can't tell a plane to stop in mid air like you can a car, while somebody makes up their mind what they wanna do. Controllers are not machines either and every now and then after thousands of split second decisions, somebody will make a wrong one. Ain't an airport in the country that hasn't got an orbit area somewhere off to the side for when the pattern gets saturated or a controller just has to say "wait a minute here"

Controllers are responsible for more lives in one shift than a surgeon in his entire career. Their record is un-equalled in any field and as a professional pilot myself, I owe my life to controllers. This BS media blurb throws unecessary light on ATC that doesn't need to be there. This happens everyday to thousands and thanks to controllers, it keeps the public safe. I'm not happy any member of the obama family or cabinet wasn't erased, but pilots and controllers work together with extreme accuracy on a dialy basis and they don't need any members of the press who only have to worry about papercuts commenting on their actions.

Well said Jason, mutual feeling on the first family

i agree with u jason and same feeling about the first family

Does anyone see the end, to the part of the controller mantra, of ‘expeditious’, so the FAA does not get future adverse judgments from the non-aviation savvy media and public?

Well, I think we are seeing a typical knee jerk bureaucratic reaction to the noisemakers, and not looking at the users

Sincewhen is the Air force in the business of transporting camp followers?

Was the 737 crew applying Visual Separation from the C17? If so, then it becomes pilot error. I would like to know the answer to that question..

Well Carl, you do raise a very interesting question. If I am hearing the account right of the whole thing though, it was radar separation up until the time they came under tower control, and even during all this time, they were in controlled airspace. Definitely food for thought but nowhere in all this has a pilot issue been raised.

The other separation problem here; the C17 has landed and according to the news channels the 737 was sent around because the C17 was still on the runway. This is not an in-trail separation problem now.. They could have been 10 miles in trail but if the first plane is still on the runway the following plane goes around...

This has happened to me on many occasions. For one reason or another the aircraft which landed prior to me was not clear the active by the time I was on short final, so the tower issued a go-around for me. Of course, my company doesn't like it when that happens because it costs more in fuel, but on a busy day this is no different than having to sit through a traffic light multiple times because there isn't enough time to allow all the cars though. Annoying, but very much normal ops.

The only thing I learned from this article is that the controllers at Andrews are under the FAA. I thought that, since it's an Air Force base, they'd be USAF controllers and operate under the control of the DoD. I know they have to abide by the FARs, but I didn't think the FAA could say much about them.

with our luck, congress will soon enact an Air Traffic Control Safety Act without any professional insight and cripple the system even more. Just like when they passed the 1500 hour ATP requirement to the right seat on Part121 operations!

Well, I don't know if they have civilian positions in that job or not, but whether USAF or civilian, as far as operations go, they will be under control of FAA, just as military aircraft are in any area. You may not see them on an FA radar track but if you go into a center someplace, you'll sure see them there and they'll receive their center contacts and frequencies on their clearances, just like everybody else.

Whether FAA or USAF or USN or or or... They all work under the same rulebook and apply the same separation criteria. The exception to that is airspace where the military applies their own separation to their own aircraft. Probably FAA controllers at Andrews because USAF controllers would be subject to being transferred out.

Just as an FYI; the center in Warrenton was where the separation error occurred. The tower caught it on the handoff and did what they needed to do to separate them. The C17 was on the ground but not clear the active. There is no real control of Pilot action at that time because as long as he is not clear, he is not clear

You know, the one good thing that may come out of all this is that some folks may realize that there is a heck of a lot goes on between takeoff and landing, rather than just get in and go. Then again, if it all dies down, it will probably all be forgot.

you know my very first solo (at an uncontrolled field none the less!) I came within 300 YARDS of another aircraft as I was on down wind and he crossed mid field to join a down wind, what did i do? turned right a few degrees and gave spacing. So the first lady's plane did a G/A BIG WHOP lets all complain about it and blame the FAA. The News media needs to stop making such a big deal about ATC's DOING THEIR JOB!

What this article SHOULD be about, is why is the first lady flying on a 737? from NEW YORK none the less, for gods sake I think a G6 will do! that must have cost $600,000!

We seriously need a squawk and eject button on comments. Love dbaker and chiphermes, not so much the cream puff in between! :p Not sure if I misread the comment about "erasing" the first family or not so I will reserve my DEMOCRATIC comments about that and just say lets please stick to the topic at hand--ATC. I agree that this isn't news worthy and anyone that's been in a plane more than once understands the purpose of a go around and the lack of glamour and excitement this news piece is trying to give it...

I guess the the plane was not RVSM... LOL, where is the news here.. SO WHAT. This is just about as import as Y2K was... A Non-Event. They must have not had much news to report. 3 Miles is a joke. Happens all the time.