Study: runway incursions scare experts
Despite the recent grounding of thousands of flights, aviation specialists say runway collisions are what worry them the most.
A runway incursion, as defined by the FAA, is
Any occurrence at an aerodrome involving the incorrect presence of an aircraft, vehicle, or person on the protected area of a surface designated for the landing and take off of aircraft.
Mark Rosenker, chairman of the National Transporation Safety Board (NTSB) says that “where we are most vulnerable at this moment is on the ground … to me, this is the most dangerous aspect of flying.”
The International Herald Tribune reports that for the six-month period that ended March 30, there were 15 serious runway incursions, compared with 8 in the period a year earlier.
The NTSB has placed runway incursions on its “most wanted list” of safety improvements since the list was created in 1990. It has recommended that the FAA
Require a collision warning system that would alert crews directly, rather than alerting tower controllers, but the FAA has said that the complexity and expenses are too great…It has, however, committed to installing more runway status lights, which warn pilots at intersections when a runway is in use.
So what is out there that will help reduce the number of runway incursions?
The Cargo Airline Association has repeatedly demonstrated a system that broadcasts, via a screen in the cockpit, the “plane’s own position and the position, equipment type and relative speed of every other plane in the neighborhood.”
This is similar to the Traffic Collision Avoidance System available in commercial planes today, but it also adds a safety layer by allowing the broadcast to be picked up on the ground as well as on other airplanes.
The FAA likes this system, but it won’t work for safety purposes until all planes are equipped. The agency won’t require all planes to broadcast for the system until 2020. It set no timetable for planes to have receivers.
Rosenker of the NTSB complained that the FAA gave no safety value to the system. “One accident that saves a passenger aircraft or two, and the cost-benefit analysis will have been well served by the implementation,” he says.
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