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Yet another serious close call has taken place. The incident of discussion now took place at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), and it has once again put the spotlight on air traffic control strain in one of the country’s most complex pieces of airspace. On the evening of March 17, 2026, an 
Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 and a FedEx Boeing 777 freighter came dangerously close while landing on intersecting runways.
Preliminary radar data analyzed by regulators indicated that the aircraft were only separated by around 300 feet (90 meters) before controllers finally decided to order the Alaska jet to go around. The FAA has opened an investigation into what is now looking like yet another concerning close call. The incident appears to have ended safely because layers of aviation safety still worked in time.
When And How Did This Situation Take Place?
According to ABC News, this incident took place at around 8:17 PM on Tuesday as the Alaska Airlines flight arrived from Portland International Airport (PDX). The FedEx cargo flight in question was in the process of arriving from Memphis International Airport (MEM). Both jets were on approach to runways at Newark. However, there were intersection pathways. This is one of the operational features that can boost overall throughput at the airport, but it does require precise sequencing and advanced coordination efforts.
Air traffic control instructed Alaska Airlines Flight 294 to perform a go-around just seconds before touchdown, when the aircraft was very close to touching down, something of extreme concern to investigators looking into this situation. The FedEx aircraft continued its landing. Preliminary flight data indicated that the Alaska jet passed just hundreds of feet from the plane, and the FAA will continue to investigate the event and its causes in further detail.
ATC Shortages And The Broader Context Behind This Incident
This near miss lands in the middle of a wider national debate over controller staffing, training capacity, and aging infrastructure. The FAA has repeatedly acknowledged a nationwide shortage of air traffic controllers and said it has not met staffing goals for the area handling Newark traffic for years.
There has already been extensive debate regarding this situation. Newark’s airspace is now handled by Philadelphia TRACON Area C, where the FAA said in 2025 that there were 22 fully certified controllers, five certified supervisors, and more than 20 people in training. The agency also tied Newark delays and the massive operational imitations that the facility has had to work with to these staffing shortages, severe congestion, runway construction, and telecommunications or equipment issues.
Separate reporting in February 2026 indicated that the FAA remained about 3,500 controllers short of targeted staffing levels, with many of the controllers working overtime and six-day workweeks. That does not necessarily mean that staffing shortages were caused by this incident, but it does explain why these close calls will continue to be viewed through a system-capacity lens.
Austin–Bergstrom’s Summer ATC Staffing Falls To “Less Than Half” Of The FAA’s Standard
A short-staffed ATC tower puts Austin Airport in a precarious position.
A Go-Around Is Not Evidence Of A Failure
For passengers, the clearest overall takeaway is that a go-around is not evidence of a failure on its own. Rather, it is one of commercial aviation’s most important built-in safety tools. In this specific case, the system appears to have done exactly what it is supposed to do when the separation between jets looks out of place. Here, ATC intervened and did exactly that, discontinuing the landing and resetting approaches.
That, in many ways, should reassure travelers, even as the event underscores real pressure points in the network as a whole. The less comforting lesson is that busy airports such as Newark are operating in an environment shaped by staffing gaps, infrastructure constraints, and relatively little margin for error.
Passengers should expect that regulators will scrutinize runway use, controller procedures, and traffic flows closely following this episode. The FAA has already said it uses traffic-management initiatives to slow operations when staffing or equipment issues arise, prioritizing safety over the integrity of schedules. In other words, these delays are frustrating, but they are often the visible price of keeping the system safe.
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