Controller Error Leads to Newark Near-Miss (AP)

A harrowing near-miss over the skies at Newark Airport is being blamed on an air controller who gave an arriving jet the wrong radio frequency for the airport's control tower, officials said yesterday.

The planes landed safely and weren't in danger of colliding - but the Wednesday-afternoon incident brought them closer than air-control rules allow, said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters.

Continental Express Flight 2614 - an Embraer jet flying from Halifax, Nova Scotia - approached Newark from the west, its pilot intending to pass south of the airport and then make two left turns to land on east-west Runway 29 at Newark's northern end. But as the 50-seat jet headed for Newark, a controller at an FAA radar center on Long Island mistakenly gave the pilots the radio frequency for Teterboro Airport.

Federal aviation officials are investigating an error by an air traffic controller on Wednesday that put two planes landing at Newark Liberty International Airport much closer to each other than is allowed under federal guidelines.

The incident occurred at 2:10 p.m. and involved a Boeing 737 operated as Continental Flight 536 arriving from Phoenix and an Embraer 145 operated as Continental Express Flight 2614 arriving from Halifax, Nova Scotia.

According to FAA spokesman Jim Peters, the error occurred at the New York Terminal Radar Approach (TRACON) center on Long Island, which guides planes landing at New York metropolitan airports as they descend from 17,000 feet to 3,000 feet before turning them over to the towers at the individual airports.

The minimum vertical separation allowed for flights landing at the airport is 1,000 feet, according to Federal Aviation Administration officials and air traffic controllers. “This was a very difficult and dangerous situation,” said Ray Adams, vice president of the air traffic controllers’ union at the airport.