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.
arizona is threatening hundreds of homes and forcing families to evacuate, this as nature s fury slams us in the east. tornadoes, heavy rain, even hail, big hail leaving a trail of destruction. welcome back to early start, everyone. great to see you today. i m john berman. i m christine romans. it is friday, and we are all thankful for that, and it is 32 minutes after the hour. breaking overnight, this is happening again. for the fourth time this week, the fourth time this week, we re learning of a frightening near collision involving passenger jets with hundreds of people on board. this time, it involves two united airlines jets flying out of houston s bush intercontinental airport. two weeks ago. both had just taken off from an air traffic controller told one to turn right, directly into the path of the other plane. they were just a few hundred feet apart and seconds from colliding when the controller realized the error and told the planes to turn again, avoiding disaster. list
turn, united 601. the faa claims it s taken steps to prevent this from happening again. it s not just republicans calling for the firing of eric shinseki, the embattled va secretary is promising to fix the deadly treatment delays that are costing veterans their lives, but now some high-profile democrats are saying the scandal should cost shinseki his job. here s chief congressional correspondent dana bash. reporter: christine and john, va secretary eric shinseki was summoned to a closed-door meeting on capitol hill yesterday afternoon, not to meet with a republican but a frustrated democrat. and afterwards, shinseki told reporters that he has not offered the president his resignation. he said you guys know me better than that. but his remaining support is tenuous. do you still think that he should be at the helm? i have not called for general shinseki to resign, although i have to admit, i m getting a little bit closer. the reports that continue to come are appalling. and the
turning right or toward the bottom of your screen just as the plane on the left of your screen, we marked it in green, took off and started flying straight. and they came very close to a midair collision. the air traffic controller quickly tried to redirect the plane saying, quote, united 601, just stop your heading, stop the turn right there, sir. he continued on, stop turning right immediately, 601. stop your turn, stop your turn, united 601. the united 601 pilot stopped the turn and the planes continued on safely. gretchen? wow. so what has been the response now from the faa? it says it s investigating what happened. but according to a houston tv station, khou, that air traffic controller may have been in an on-the-job training program. but the faa won t comment or confirm that. but the faa said, quote, the controller issued instructions to both pilots to safely separate the aircraft. the closest proximity between
apparently because one of planes were told to turn right after take-off instead of left which put it in the flight path of the other plane that also was taking off. the air traffic controller quickly tried to redirect flight 601 saying united 601 stop your turn, stop your climbing. stop your turn, united 601. the faa is investigating and says the two planes came within 8-10th of of as my. we ve put a picture to give you an idea how close the planes were. a tv station was reporting that the air traffic controller may have been in an on-the-job training program, but the faa has not confirmed that. the national air traffic controller s association says it does not think this incident is related to levels of staffing, but does note that there may be some turnover in the industry in years to come. as 20% of air traffic