The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in partnership with its controllers and industry last Wednesday agreed to step up efforts to reduce the number of runway mishaps at U.S. airports, disclosing five short-term (30-60 day) initiatives.
The so-called aviation summit was attended by 40 aviation safety officials from the airline industry, aircraft and avionics manufacturers, unionized controllers and the FAA. The announced measures were wide ranging, but did not include further expedited deployment of the Sensis Airport Surface Detection Equipment, Model X (ASDE-X) surveillance radar. Nor do they include certification, procurement and deployment of lower cost alternative airport surface surveillance systems being tested successfully at Spokane International Airport. It also did not address streamlining NOTAMs that industry experts have recommended.
FAA Deputy Administrator Bobby Sturgell said the initiatives brainstormed at the one-day meeting respond to recent runway incursions across the United States, including high-profile incidents in the last year in Chicago and Fort Lauderdale. “We have seen some incidents of late that concern us. We thought it was appropriate to re-energize and re-focus ourselves on this problem at this time.”
Mid- and to long-term goals will address maximizing situational awareness, minimizing pilot distractions, and eliminating runway incursions using procedures and technology. Situational awareness and pilot distractions were both cited in the Comair accident in Lexington, Ky., which killed 49.
The National Transportation Safety Board has made runway incursions a top priority as evidenced by its recent runway incursion forum in Washington. Related Story As part of the its accident investigation into the crash of the Comair aircraft a year ago, the board recently reiterated its unsatisfactory rating of FAA actions on stemming runway incursions since FAA resisted requiring cockpit-based alert system that would warn pilots faster than they could be warned through control tower alerts and the subsequent controller warnings. Related Story
The Comair accident prompted the Board to also recommend the FAA require moving map displays or an automatic system that alerts pilots when a takeoff is attempted on a taxiway or the wrong runway in all cockpits of Parts 121, 91 and 135 operators, something on which the agency is already moving. One of the biggest contributions to increased runway incursions is the construction at many expanding airports similar to what occurred in the Comair accident.
Enhanced ground markings and illuminated signage have been installed to include a large painted yellow square with an arrow directing pilots to Runway 22 at the Blue Grass Airport in Kentucky, the one which the ill-fated flight should have used. Comair and the Air Line Pilots Association International (ALPA) say the airport is partly to blame for the crash, alleging signage deficiencies at the time of the incident. But the NTSB said the airport’s runways “had appropriate runway holding position and taxiway location signs at the taxiway entrance to each runway.”
Airport safety reviews will be conducted at U.S. airports that have suffered multiple runway incursion incidents, with inspector teams, made up of FAA and airport officials, looking at operational procedures, signage and markings. The reviews of the runway and surface environments will be conducted during the next two months. While the agency did not name the 20 to 30 airports, Los Angeles is likely to be one, given the number of reports coming out of it. In addition, it was the site of a runway accident between SkyWest Metro III and a US Airways 737 in 1991. Denver has also had widely publicized runway incursions this year.
Sturgell is urging the top 73 U.S. airports to upgrade runway signs and markings over the next 60 days in advance of the current September 2008 deadline. He indicated the initiative may go beyond the 73 airports.
The FAA’s Associate Administrator for Safety Nick Sabatini said air carrier simulator training must now include ground movement operations from the gate to the takeoff position. Sabatini also said airports, airlines, controllers and the FAA will do a better job in sharing information across the entire community.
The group attending the one-day summit also recommended reviewing taxi and clearance procedures, also mentioned by NTSB in its Comair report, when it called for pilots to stop and receive individual clearances before leaving an intersection. Current practice is to give pilots blanket clearances from gate to runway and from runway to gate. As a result, airlines will modify their pre-departure checklists so that more checks are made at the gate, reducing distractions for pilots moving aircraft across the airport. And the FAA will perform a safety risk analysis to establish better ways for controllers to instruct departing aircraft. Sabatini says taxi instruction from controllers need to be more precise. Today, controllers are not required to give complete taxi route instructions to pilots. Without detailed instructions from the control tower, said Sabatini, pilots tend to take the shortest route possible.
The FAA, with the support of the controllers’ union, will establish a voluntary self-reporting safety system for controllers patterned after the highly successful Aviation Safety Action Program (ASAP).
For a complete report, including statistics on the rise of runway incursions as well as accelerated plans for the introduction of ASDE-X at Chicago and recent incursions that prompted the FAA action see the latest issue of Air Safety Week at www.aviationtoday.com. The report also includes analysis of the main causes of runway incursions from DOT’s Volpe Center.

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Sensis, Honeywell Test Crew, Runway Alert System
Sensis and Honeywell have partnered on a technology demonstration of a crew-alerting system that would protect against runway incursions, Avionics, RAN’s sister publication reports. Runway incursions are a huge issue for regionals since statistics indicate they are more likely to be involved simply by their sheer numbers.
The system would communicate ground-based incursion alerts from FAA’s Airport Surface Detection Equipment, Model X (ASDE-X) surveillance radar, made by Sensis, via Mode S data link to an aircraft’s Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) unit. Flight crews initially would get audible alerts of runway conflicts while future features may include visual representations of runway traffic.
Sensis and Honeywell officials said the alerting system requires no hardware modification to either ASDE-X or TCAS, versions of which are manufactured by Honeywell. They said the joint project aims to address the issue of runway incursions, one of the National Transportation Safety Board’s “most wanted” items, sooner rather than later.
“This is an effort to bootstrap some progress relatively quickly,” said Rick Berckefeldt, marketing manager for safety systems with Honeywell Aerospace. “This is a technology demonstration — it’s not a product launch. It’s strictly about what’s possible.”
The alerting system was tested in May using Honeywell-owned King Air and Sabreliner aircraft operating at Syracuse Hancock International Airport, where FAA has an ASDE-X test facility.
ASDE-X fuses data from surface surveillance radar, multi-lateration sensors, Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) sensors and aircraft transponders to provide air-traffic controllers with the position and identification of aircraft and vehicles on the airport surface as well as aircraft within five miles of the airport. FAA plans to have 10 operational ASDE-X systems by the end of fiscal 2007. Overall, 35 major airports will be equipped.