NEWARK, N.J. - A United Airlines jetliner was coming in for a landing at the Las Vegas airport in 2006 when the tower radioed that a smaller plane was still crossing the runway.
So the United pilot executed a "go-around," a routine maneuver in which an incoming plane pulls up at the last minute and circles around. But the jet suddenly found itself on a collision course with an American Airlines plane taking off from an intersecting runway.
The United crew took a hard right turn, the American flight veered off in the other direction, and disaster was averted.
The near-collision offered a frightening vision of what can happen during a go-round at the nation's congested airports.
An Associated Press review of tower logs and summaries from eight of the nation's busiest airports, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, found more than 1,500 go-arounds during the last six months of 2007 alone.
Go-arounds haven't been blamed for any crashes or midair collisions involving commercial airliners in the past three decades, according to a review of National Transportation Safety Board records. Still, there have been some close calls.
"We can go 99 percent of the time and not have a problem. But it only takes one," said John Wallin, president of the air traffic controllers union at Memphis.
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