Navy halts some practice landings after near collision

The Navy has temporarily stopped conducting practice emergency aircraft landings near Norfolk International Airport in the wake of a near head-on collision between an E-2C Hawkeye and a commercial flight earlier this year.

The close call, first reported Friday by WVEC-TV, happened around 11 a.m. on Feb. 9, roughly 4,000 feet above Hampton Roads.

The commercial flight, a US Airways Express DHC-8, which seats as many as 50, was headed to Norfolk International. The Hawkeye, an early-warning aircraft that took off from Norfolk Naval Station's Chambers Field, was set to make a mock emergency landing back at the base. The maneuver involves a quick descent from about 5,000 feet in "a left racetrack pattern," according to a Federal Aviation Administration report on the incident.

The report says that the Hawkeye, which had been cleared for the landing, nearly crashed into the US Airways plane while descending, and that a collision was avoided only because the commercial pilot spotted the Hawkeye and made a fast left turn.

"The pilot believes he would have collided with the E-2 aircraft had he not taken this evasive action," the report says.

At their closest, the planes were separated by roughly three-quarters of a mile horizontally and 100 feet vertically. It wasn't until they passed each other that a crew member in the back of the Hawkeye saw the other aircraft.

The FAA's investigation into the incident faulted its own procedures and the air traffic controller who was responsible for the commercial flight. The report indicates that he didn't alert the plane, at that point being monitored by radar, that another aircraft was nearby. He also failed to properly coordinate with another controller in the airport tower who was handling the Hawkeye as it passed through Norfolk International's traffic pattern.

In a written statement, the FAA said the controller was temporarily taken off duty and sent for retraining. The FAA also suspended the air traffic procedure that was in use for monitoring military aircraft making practice emergency landings through the civilian airport's air space, and it remains suspended.

For now, the Navy is not conducting such training landings, said Terri Davis, a spokeswoman for Norfolk Naval Station. Davis said the FAA recommended soon after the incident that the base temporarily stop the landings until Norfolk air traffic controllers become better trained in how to handle them.

So far, the FAA has not told the Navy that it's safe to resume the maneuvers, Davis said.

Both the FAA and the Navy said they weren't aware of any previous close calls or of previous concerns over the military landings or FAA procedures for handling them.

Cmdr. Phil Rosi, a spokesman with Naval Air Force Atlantic, said the FAA told the Navy soon after the incident that its investigation found no mistakes by the Hawkeye crew or its squadron, Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron 124.