JFK Airport, April 2026. The System Worked. That’s Not the Point.
- Mike Mason
- May 4
- 4 min read
Just a few weeks ago at New York's JFK Airport, two passenger jets narrowly avoided a mid-air collision when an American Airlines regional jet deviated from its approach path and flew within 350 feet of a landing Air Canada jet. Both flight crews successfully aborted their landings, triggered onboard collision avoidance alarms, and landed safely.
Right up until the moment the TCAS alerts go off, everything looks under control.
Clearances are given and are responded to. Positions are updated and each step makes sense in isolation. The system continues to move traffic efficiently, just as it’s designed to do, just as it does, day in, day out.
Very quickly, the situation shifts. TCAS activates and the crews respond with evasive action.
The aircraft pass each other with considerably reduced separation. There is no collision. There are no fatalities.
From the outside, that can look like success. It's really not.
1. Recovery Gets Mistaken for Safety
The most obvious takeaway from this event is that the system recovered. There was no collision. The crews responded in a textbook fashion to the TCAS alerts. The last line of defence did exactly what it was designed to do.
This is often where the story ends. As a story to be celebrated. But it shouldn’t. By the time TCAS is issuing resolution advisories, aspects of the system have already failed somewhere upstream. The margin has almost completely gone. The situation has already developed to a point where only a final intervention prevents the outcome.
I know we all see near misses like this (although with perhaps not quite as serious consequences) in organisations all the time. A problem gets caught just before it causes real damage. Someone corrects a decision at the last moment. A team works late to recover a slipping project.
The conclusion is often the same:
“That was close—but we managed it.”
The uncomfortable reality we need to face is that needing to recover at the last second is not a sign of strength. It’s a sign that the system is operating without enough margin.
2. The System Relies on the Last Barrier
In aviation, there are many layers of defence. These include:
Procedures.
Separation standards.
Air traffic control.
And onboard systems like TCAS.
Each layer is there to prevent others from being needed. In this case, the final (TCAS) layer was required and that matters. When systems start to rely on their last line of defence, they are no longer managing risk effectively.
Earlier in the sequence, the situation still made sense. The aircraft were operating normally. The controller was managing multiple pieces of traffic. Nothing stood out as obviously wrong. But the system allowed the geometry to develop to a point where only one layer remained.
Once you’re there, options are limited. In business, the equivalent is relatively easy to recognise. Escalations that happen (or are solved) just in time. Senior leaders might step in to resolve issues that should have been managed earlier. Firefighting becoming routine.
And It works.
Until it doesn’t work any more.
3. “Close” Becomes Acceptable
Near misses are dangerous for a different reason. When nothing bad happens, it makes it easier to move on. If the aircraft didn’t collide and the system recovered and operations continued... The event gets logged, reviewed, and then absorbed into the background.
Over time, this creates a subtle shift where 'close' becomes acceptable. This isn't done consciously. Nor deliberately. But gradually. This is actually pretty normal human behaviour. If nothing happens, it’s difficult to treat it as a real failure. This is how systems drift.
Margins gradually reduce. Tolerance increases. What would once have been considered unacceptable becomes something that is managed, then something that is expected, and eventually something that is normal.
4. It Still Makes Sense at the Time
There’s a tendency to look at events like this and ask:
“How did that happen?”
As if there must have been a moment where someone realised something was wrong and didn’t act!
More often, that moment just doesn’t exist. Each step in the sequence makes sense at the time. The information available is incomplete while the complete picture is still forming. The priorities are competing and the system continues to move forward. Until it stops moving.
From the outside, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, the risk is obvious. Everything is clear and Tte outcome feels inevitable. From the inside, in real time, it’s different.
People are rarely making poor decisions. They are usually making perfectly reasonable decisions based on the (incomplete) picture they have. That’s why these events are so hard to prevent. And why they’re so important to learn from.
Final thought
This wasn’t a failure because the system didn’t work. Think of it as a failure because it only just worked by relying on the last line of defence. The margin was allowed to reduce to a level where it depended on recovery rather than control.
None of that is unusual and that’s the problem. Systems that rely on last-minute recovery don’t feel broken. They feel capable. Right up until the moment they aren’t.
If you’re a leader…
The questions for you aren’t about aviation. They’re about your system.
Where are you relying on recovery instead of design?
Where are problems being caught late rather than prevented early?
What does “that was close” actually mean in your organisation?
How much margin do you really have?
If the system only works at the last moment…
…it isn’t working as well as you think.
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Mike Mason and Sam Gladman are the co-founders of On Target, a leadership and team development company that brings elite fighter pilot expertise into the corporate world. With decades of combined experience in high-performance aviation, they specialise in translating critical skills such as communication, decision-making, and teamwork into practical tools for business. Through immersive training and cutting-edge simulation, Mike and Sam help teams build trust, improve performance, and thrive under pressure—just like the best flight crews in the world.
If you'd like to learn more about how On Target can help your team, contact Mike and Sam at info@ontargetteaming.com.
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