The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is looking into reports regarding recent flights arriving at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C.. According to the FAA, they received multiple false alerts about potential midair collisions. This comes approximately one month after a tragic incident involving an American Airlines aircraft and an Army helicopter that took the lives of 67 people, per PEOPLE.

“Several flight crews inbound to Reagan Washington National Airport received onboard alerts Saturday [March 1] indicating another aircraft was nearby when no other aircraft were in the area. Some of the crews executed go-arounds as a result of the alerts,” the FAA wrote in a statement shared with PEOPLE on Tuesday, March 4. “The FAA is investigating why the alerts occurred,” concluded the agency’s statement. 

False alerts were detected on the flights’ Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), as reported by CBS News. The news organization analyzed air traffic control audio and discovered that at least 12 flight crews received these incorrect alerts on Saturday. This lead to three flights needing to perform go-arounds between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. local time.

“It’s been happening all morning. Let me know if you see anything. No one else has seen anything except for on the TCAS,” an air traffic controller could be heard saying, CNN reported. “Yeah, we got a little something there,” the pilot answered shortly after. “It said on the TCAS that it was 600 feet above us. And we didn’t see anything.”

A similar interaction took place between a different pilot and air traffic control on the same day. 

The FAA states that the TCAS is a component of the Airborne Collision Avoidance System (ACAS), designed to enhance safety by decreasing the likelihood of mid-air collisions between aircraft.

#Clique, what are your thoughts?