Safety Group Founder Says NTSB Will Recommend New Plane Separation Rules At O'Hare
(CBS) -- The founder of a Park Ridge group that advocates for safety and noise issues for people living near O'Hare Airport says the National Transportation Safety Board is recommending new guidelines to the FAA regarding the separation of planes, reports WBBM's Mike Krauser.
Gene Spanos of the group Citizens Against Plane Pollution says the issue is the non-intersecting runways at O'Hare and the separation of planes side to side and front to back.
"You can see them at about six o'clock in the evening when rush hour is, it looks like a fleet, an air force fleet that is landing, civilian commercial airliners that are landing and they are wingtip to wingtip. Quite frankly, there is some distance there but my concern is that if anybody has to go around or pull out of his slot he can't do it. He is just going to have to take that plane into the ground," said Spanos.
Spanos notes a survey of 2,000 pilots found that 97 percent said they would ignore the tower if they were told to pull up and go around because of the potential for a disaster.