FAA changes JFK rules after 2nd incident

NEW YORK, July 12 (UPI) -- U.S. Federal Aviation Administration officials say they have changed take-off and landing procedures at New York's Kennedy Airport after two near collisions.

Air traffic controllers working at Kennedy and a nearby regional control center said the first incident happened last week when a Cayman Airways jet and a LAN Chile airliner came close to colliding while using perpendicular runways at Kennedy, but the FAA denied there was a problem, The New York Daily News reported Saturday.

FAA officials were at the Kennedy International Airport tower investigating that incident when another one happened Friday on the same two Kennedy runways, the newspaper said, this time involving a Delta Airlines flight and a regional jet.

FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said the latest incident also did not meet its criteria for a "near collision," but did say the agency has changed takeoff and landing procedures for the airport's intersecting runways.

Barrett Byrnes, a spokesman for Kennedy's air traffic controllers, told the Daily News the FAA's moves were "wonderful even though they're late. We've been trying to change (the JFK procedures) since the mid-1990s."