(From the AP) Alarmed by a spate of near-collisions involving airliners, the government is trying to find out why air traffic controllers and pilots are making so many dangerous errors. In recent months, there have been at least a half-dozen incidents in which airliners came close to colliding with other planes or helicopters — including in Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, Burbank, Calif., and Anchorage, Alaska. In some cases, pilots made last-second changes in direction after cockpit alarms went off warning of an impending crash.

“This spring we had several close calls that got everybody’s attention, and I think that’s the thing that really keyed us into taking at look at some of the risks, try to identify what we’re missing,” Robert Tarter, vice president of Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Safety-Air Traffic Organization, told employees in a conference call kicking off the new safety effort.

Read more here: Recent near-collisions raise air safety alarms