Two close calls in air over Chicago

CHICAGO, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Controller errors are being blamed for back-to-back scares involving passenger jets at Chicago's O'Hare Airport.

Neither incident was a near-miss, but both violated the Federal Aviation Administration's rule that planes be at least five miles apart horizontally and 1,000 feet apart vertically, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Sunday.

In the first incident, a controller-in-training at the FAA's radar facility in Aurora, Ill., let an American Airlines jet from O'Hare come within 400 feet vertically of a jet en route to Milwaukee Thursday night, the Sun-Times reported.

In the second incident, about two hours later, an American Airlines jet came within three miles horizontally of a United Airlines jet in front of it as both planes were being directed to land at O'Hare by a controller at the

FAA's Terminal Radar Approach Control facility in Elgin, Ill., the Sun-Times reported.

The Elgin facility reported 56 close calls this year resulting from controller errors -- nearly double the number last year -- while the Aurora center reported 37 controller errors this year -- three during training in the last two weeks, the Sun-Times reported.