![]() 'It is not what we'd expect to have happen,' Nolen said. He also argued that the system worked properly, despite there being a close call. 'It was a low visibility day,' he told Cruz. While it appears to be a 'clear blue' day in the recreation, in reality the tower had zero visibility when the incident occurred. Nolen also pointed out one big difference in the video from what happened in real life. 'Certainly, we are letting the investigation play itself out,' the witness answered. It's being probed by the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board. Nolen pointed out that the incident is under investigation. 'And what can we do to make sure that doesn't happen again?' Cruz added. 'It is only through, I understand it, the heroism of the pilots being alert and seeing what was happening that that tragedy was averted and yet, my question is: how can this happen?' Cruz asked. 'How did air traffic control direct one plane onto the runway to take off and another plane to land and have them both within 100 feet of each other?' In the animated video, the FedEx plane can be seen making its approach, as the Southwest jet sits on the runway and then starts to take offĪfter the video played, Cruz focused his attention on Nolen, who spent his career as a pilot and then in airline safety. ![]() 'And I would note that Secretary Buttigieg, in my view, instead of engaging in politics should be focused on the job he has now and addressing the various transportation crises we are seeing play out across the country,' Cruz said. The Texas Republican also expressed his disappointment that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg wasn't in front of the Democrat-led committee. ![]() ![]() 'If you were sitting on the Southwest flight and you knew how close you came to having a plane land on top of you, killing every person on that plane, you would understandably be horrified,' Cruz told witness Billy Nolen, the acting head of the Federal Aviation Administration during the heated hearing. GOP Senator Ted Cruz played a terrifying recreation of a plane having to pull up at the last minute to avoid crashing into another jet on the runway in a hearing on recent airport failures across the country.Ĭruz had Senate Commerce Committee staff play an animated video that showed the scary February 4 incident from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, when a FedEx plane nearly landed on top a Southwest jet bound for Cancun, Mexico filled with passengers. ![]()
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