and i m john berman. huge crowds at chick fill a s all across the country. they weigh in about the national debate about gay marriage and free speech. some people wanted a sandwich. another thrilling finish leads to gold for team u.s.a. this is cnn breaking news. breaking overnight a frighteningly close call in the skies. three commuter jets came within seconds of a mid-air collision. we re talk 12g seconds after confused air traffic controllers dealing with bad weather launched two flights at another plane that was coming in for another landing. the two closest plains were less than 1.5 miles apart and they were closing in at 400 miles an hour. they were operated by u.s. airways. they had a combined 192 people on board. listen to how it unfolded on the radio. 3329 stand by. hold on. we re trying to get a copy. stand by. okay, we really we ll get back to you as soon as i can. we ve got to get off the ground here pretty quick. everybody stand by, we ve got
fi five. we have to get on the ground pretty quick. everybody stand by. we have a couple of opposite direction arrivals. it is going to be a little delay on your departures. according to the washington post the federal official who reviewed the incident blamed a basic communication breakdown, blamed sloppy procedures and said it was a big screw up for a big airport. let s get right to athena jones live in washington, d.c. this morning. walk me through exactly what happened. you can hear the chaos in the radio transmission. what was at the root cause of it? good morning, soledad. you saw from that graphic, that s what it looked like. this happened just about after 2 p.m. tuesday. it was during a heavy rain storm, driving rain that cause the the air traffic controllers to want to change how planes were coming in and taking off. planes had been landing and departing on runway 1 going from south to north. they wanted to switch that in the rain. they wanted to switch i
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