Work Begins on Midway Safety Buffers

The work is nearly complete on the first bed of concrete blocks at Midway’s northwest corner, part of work scheduled for four Midway runways that resulted from the accident a year ago in which a Southwest 737 overran the runway, killing a six-year-old boy riding in a car on a neighboring roadway. The projects, which cost $40 million, will be completed next year despite statements by city officials that major changes at Midway were not needed to improve safety. The safety buffer of crushable concrete is designed to slow or stop a plane under similar circumstances. The National Transportation Safety Board said that beds would have lessened the damage in last year's accident. The soft concrete mixture that composes the arrestor bed system is meant to collapse beneath the weight of a plane to help it slow down or stop quickly.