TETERBORO, N.J., Aug. 22 (UPI) -- New Jersey's Teterboro Airport, which handles small jets and other aircraft, sees more "runway incursions" than New York's major airports, statistics indicate.
Such incursions, defined as incidents of near-collisions of aircraft with other planes, people or vehicles, happened 26 times at the busy "reliever" airfield from 2001 to 2008, more than at New York's John F. Kennedy or LaGuardia international airports, The New York Times reported Saturday.
Teterboro made headlines this month in the collision of a helicopter and small plane over the Hudson River killed nine. The plane had been cleared for takeoff from Teterboro and investigators are looking at the actions of a Teterboro controller who allegedly was making a personal phone call as he was monitoring the flight, the newspaper said.
Officials of the National Transportation Safety Board investigators were at the airport again Friday to probe the crash of a small plane as it tried to land, injuring both pilots.
"It is a very old tower," Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, told the Times. "It was not designed to accommodate either the number of people or the kind of work they do there today."
