New York, NY —

In the last few weeks, air traffic controllers in New York have made an alarming number of errors that could have caused mid-air accidents. The FAA says planes have flown too close to each other at a rate at least six times higher than such errors occurred last year. WNYC's Collin Campbell reports.

There have been 19 confirmed errors by the men and women who control traffic above New York this year. There were just 24 errors reported in all of 2004. The controllers' union says the reason is a cutback in overtime which has led to a shortage of personnel at the local FAA facility, where controllers manage the flow in and out of Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark.

Under FAA rules, controllers are supposed to avoid allowing planes to pass closer than three miles apart horizontally or 1,000 feet vertically. Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer are asking the FAA to reconsider its efforts to curtail overtime. The agency says it doesn't know why more errors are happening and will analyze staffing levels.