Senator Charles Schumer is calling on the Federal Aviation Administration to install a new runway light system to prevent plane collisions in city airports.
This comes after a Caribbean airliner and a Jet Blue plane almost collided with each other at Kennedy Airport last Monday.
Schumer says congress set aside 36 million dollars for the lighting to be installed at JFK, La Guardia and Newark airports seven years ago.
But he blames the Federal Aviation Administration for not following through.
"We cannot wait for a deadly collision to occur to prioritize. This should be a top priority now. It's not that expensive. It works. It's been proven to work at the nine ther airports and we should have it here," Schumer said.
Red lights would be embedded in the runway to alert pilots of other planes.
A total of 17 airports in the country have been approved for the lighting system.
However, only nine airports have them installed.
Schumer says that in Texas near-miss incidents have been reduced by 70 percent thanks to the new lights.