Planes pass within 15 feet at L.A. airport

LOS ANGELES — The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating a runway incursion that happened Sunday at Los Angeles International Airport when two planes passed within 10 to 15 feet of each other, according to one witness.

Ian Gregor, an FAA spokesman, said Monday that the incident occurred about 3 p.m. when a Midwest Express Embraer E-190 passed the hold bars on a taxiway and came closer than it should have to a Northwest Airlines Boeing 757 taking off on the south side's inner runway.

Mike Foote, an air traffic controller who was on duty at the time, estimated that the planes were 10 to 15 feet apart. "Had it been the Boeing 747 that was next in line to take off, they would have hit," said Foote, who is a local representative of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

In June 2008, the airport opened a 1.8-mile-long centerline taxiway to act as a buffer zone between the two runways on the airport's south side, where eight minor incursions have occurred since 2008.