It was a chilly winter evening when disaster nearly struck. A little after 6 p.m. on February 18, 2007, a Northwest Airlink commuter plane was making a routine descent into Memphis International Airport when a cockpit warning light flashed. Something was wrong with the landing gear, and the pilot decided to abort. He radioed the tower to let controllers know he would be executing a "go-around," ascending and then, if the equipment checked out, attempting to land again. There was only one problem: Another plane, a Northwest Airlines DC-9 nearly twice the size of the commuter plane, was heading into the same airspace.
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