Latest terrifying airport near-miss saw two jets almost collide in full view of Manhattan skyline
In the latest terrifying airport near-miss, a jet in New York was forced to abruptly abort takeoff as another was still on LaGuardia Airport's runway.
Passengers on board Republic Airways Flight 4736 on May 6 were thrown forward in their seats as the pilot slammed on the brakes at 12.35am.
The sudden stop occurred because a United Airlines aircraft was still taxiing across the runway, according to the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.
One jolted passenger, Renee Hoffer, described the incident as 'as hard as any car accident I've been in,' after she wound up in the emergency room the next day.
Hoffer told Associated Press that she visited the ER with neck pain and a numb left arm on May 6, the day after the plane came to an abrupt halt.
As the incident occurred, the air traffic controller was heard telling the Republic Airways pilot, 'Sorry, I thought United had cleared well before that,' News 10 ABC reported.
A ground controller on a separate radio frequency was, at the same time, guiding the United aircraft to a new taxiway after it had missed its intended exit.
Passengers were disembarked from the plane, but Hoffer said gate agents refused to offer any accommodation or hotel vouchers.
She said that the airline blamed weather circumstances for the incident, despite another passenger who had an app on her phone that showed another plane was on the runway.
Hoffer told ABC that she had been battling with customer service since the incident and neither the airline nor the FAA had answered her complaints. It is unclear why passengers disembarked or if they were re-booked onto another flight.
She continues to suffer from a pinched nerve in her neck that ER doctors identified.
The FAA and NTSB said that an investigation into the incident is ongoing. Republic Airways did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com's request for comment.
The close call comes not long after a Delta flight near Reagan National Airport had a near miss moments after takeoff.
Carrying 137 people, the flight departed for Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, when it received a sudden emergency notification of a nearby aircraft.
Alarms went off inside the cockpit of the passenger flight just minutes after taking off, due to how close the T-38 jet came to the plane.
The close call happened just south of the airport and close to the spot where an American Airlines jet collided with a army helicopter in January, killing 67 people.
According to tracking data from FlightRadar 24, the Air Force jet flew past the Delta plane in excess of 350 miles per hour.
The FAA said the military jet was in the area alongside three others for a flyover at Arlington National Cemetery.
In air traffic control chatter heard via LiveATC.net, a Delta pilot can be heard saying: 'Was there an actual aircraft about 500 feet below us?'.
An air traffic controller responds: 'Affirmative'.
The latest incident follows a streak of aircraft crashes and close calls since the start of the year including the one at Reagan National Airport.
At the time of the collision, a single air traffic controller was simultaneously monitoring both the helicopter and plane traffic.
Those tasks are usually handled between two people from 10am until 9:30pm, according to an early FAA report seen by The New York Times.
After 9:30pm the duties are typically combined and left to one person as the airport sees less traffic later in the night.
A supervisor reportedly decided to combine those duties before the scheduled cutoff time however, and allowed one air traffic controller to leave work early.
The FAA report said that staffing configuration 'was not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic'.
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