2nd Close Call in Skies over Chicago CHICAGO, IL (wqub) - For the second time in a week, an air traffic control error caused two planes to come dangerously close to one another.

Both incidents involved the FAA's Chicago Center air-traffic control facility in Aurora. Chicago Public Radio's Ammad Omar reports.

Last week, air traffic controllers at the Chicago Center directed a Midwest Airlines flight directly into the path of a United Express jet.

Disaster was averted when the pilot pulled up seconds before the planes would have hit Saturday's incident - over southwestern Wisconsin - wasn't quite as close a call.

According to the FAA -two private planes got to within about 3 miles of each other - well under the 5 mile lateral buffer required.

That's close enough for the incident to be classified as a serious error - But FAA Spokesman Tony Molinaro says the public shouldn't worry.

***Two incidents in one week at a center - again these are the busy busy centers with millions of flights every year - that doesn't
constitute by itself a problem. If there was a trend in some way something related to these incidents, we'd look at those incidents,
but there wasn't.

The Chicago Center facility directs air traffic over a five state area- including parts of Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Air Traffic Union leader Toby Hauk says the facility is understaffed, and training is not as intensive as it once was.

**We're pushing people through and it's at an alarming pace. And Saturday, the error that happened over Wisconsin was with a younger
individual - a younger fully certified individual - and that's gonna happen a lot more as we start short-cutting training more and more.

FAA officials maintain the Chicago Center is properly staffed - and insist that human error is inevitable.

The planes in both instances were equipped with on-board sensors that told pilots another aircraft was close by. I'm Ammad Omar
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