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Editor: James T. Crouse
Profession: Aviation Accident Attorney

Category: Aviation Safety

Frieda has been writing about runway incursions for well over year - it seems everybody talks about the problem but nobody takes action. Let's say this one more time - lives are at stake!

As global air traffic expands at record rates, experts warn that near misses on the ground at overcrowded airports are becoming "one of the most serious safety concerns in civil aviation".

This is not news to the NTSB who has had this situation listed on their "10 Most Wanted List" since 1991 - the status still stands as "action needed by the FAA/unacceptable response". Now we have the spokesman for the International Federation of Airline Pilots' Association stating "Runway incursions are right at the top of our agenda". Although most incursions pass without incident, but when collisions do occur, they can be deadly - in 1977, two Boeing 747s collided on the ground killing 583 people - and there have been more disasters since then. According to Eurocontrol, an average of two incursions happen each day at Europe's 600 civil airports and in the U. S. - using different reporting standards - we had 182 incidents so far in 2007, an increase over 158 for all of last year and we still have the busy holiday travel season ahead of us.

The danger of incursions grows when airports add runways in an attempt to ease bottlenecking of aircraft. This in turn leads to more taxiways having to cross runways used by jets to take off and land and of course incursions are happening more and more often as air traffic increases and older airport designs are not able to cope. The potential for more near missed - therefore more fatal collisions - will only increase since the volume of traffic is projected to double in the nest 10-15 years.

A well designed airport is one of the answers to this problem - Washington Dulles is one, reporting only 3 incursions from 1997 to 2000, while LAX reported 29 for the same time period. Red lights embedded in the tarmac as a warning, standardized use of the English language and instructions to help foreign pilots using our airports, flashing labels on radar screens coupled with audio signals, using real time depiction of movements on airport maps, and advanced runway incursion alert systems are all part of the solution. Alert systems are great, but they must be functional at all times. Chicago's O'Hare has an alert system in place but it wasn't working when two planes - a 747 and a 737 - missed each other by only 35 feet. As stated in our blog 11/27/06: "To add insult to injury, the ground alert system at O'Hare - as inadequate as it may be - was OUT OF SERVICE on July 23, 2006".

It's time we get these systems up and running - and working - to save lives. In the 16 years since the NTSB report, officials, planners, and executives have been researching, studying, and making this problem a "top priority" - - it's time for action. Perhaps if those of us who are in those planes taxing on the runways used out voices to insist on safety, we would be heard and the job would get done.