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…
