Posted at 6:27 a.m. PDT Friday, September 29, 2000 FAA confirms near-collision of cargo jet, small plane near LAX

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A FedEx cargo jet nearly collided with a small private plane after taking off from Los Angeles International Airport this week, the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed.

The FedEx Airbus A310 carrying a two-member crew missed colliding with a Piper Comanche by 200 feet just before sunset Tuesday, officials said Thursday.

Air traffic controllers blamed the near-collision on a flawed air traffic procedure. But FAA officials have initially attributed the incident to air controller error, though they are continuing to investigate.

Following procedure, the cargo jet took off over the ocean. It crossed the path of a small private plane. The pilot of the cargo plane took evasive action after realizing the two planes were flying at the same altitude, an air traffic controller said.

A warning system should have warned the controller that the two planes were on a conflicting course, said Mike Foote, head of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association at the Los Angeles airport. He said the system may have malfunctioned.

Air traffic at Los Angeles International, one of the world's busiest airports, is difficult to manage because of the relatively small space the facility occupies. The current procedure, which allows large aircraft to cross the path of smaller ones, causes one or two near-misses every two years, Foote said.

``It's a very, very dumb procedure and it's hard to believe that at the world's fourth-busiest airport, we are launching aircraft directly into crossing traffic,'' he said. ``This was a cargo flight but it could just as easily have been a Boeing 747 with 400 people on it.''

FAA Spokesman Jerry Snyder said that the agency has considered examining the policy. But he said the system is not unsafe. ``It is working,'' he said.

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-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), September 29, 2000