the cause of these frightening close calls. reporter: the close calls involve air traffic controllers on each end of the country. may 9th in houston, united flight 601 was departing from vancouver on runway 9 as united flight 437 was leaving from mexico city on runway 15. the controller apparently made a serious mistake. 601, thank you, heading 340. instead of telling the vancouver flight to turn left he told him to turn right into the path of the other plane. the controller then quickly realized his mistake. united 601, stop your climbing and stop your turn, united 601. reporter: the planes came 400 feet vertically, .8 miles laterally. seconds away from disaster. arriving united 737 flew right over the top of a departing express jet regional flight that had been cleared for takeoff on an intersecting runway. do you have him in sight? maintain visual. oh, yeah, he s real close.
nathan adrian beating the aussie missile in the 100 meter freestyle finish. you ve just got to see it. when is gold actually green? olympians being taxed for their gold, silver, and bronze. does first place really mean a $9,000 tax bill? skipping, pirouettes, the extended trot. a 15-year-old mayor enters the olympic sport of dressage today. why is this news, you ask? rafalka is ann romney s horse. cnn newsroom begins right now. good morning to you. i m carol costello. thank you so much for joining us. just in this morning, a collision narrowly averted at reagan national airport near washington, d.c. it involved three jets carrying a total of 192 passengers. two planes took off tuesday afternoon heading toward a third plane, which was already cleared to land. the planes were seconds away from crashing. when an air traffic controller realized a mistake had been made. 3329, stands by. hold on. we re trying to figure this out too. stand by. we have a temporary stop on a