"Aviation officials urge more training to prevent incursions"

Thursday, August 28, 2003

Aviation officials urge more training to prevent incursions
The Minneapolis (MN) Star Tribune


Nearly 200 aviation officials from the Great Lakes area and Canada are
meeting this week in Bloomington to remind each other how to prevent airport
collisions. Their target is runway incursions - incidents in which planes
and other vehicles show up when they shouldn't on runways and nearby
taxiways. 

Although airports have rules and procedures to prevent incursions, pilots
and drivers don't always follow them, said officials of the Federal Aviation
Agency (FAA) and Transports Canada. That means airports must continue
training people who work at airports, they said. Twelve runway incursions
were reported at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport from 1999 to
2002 - none in the most dangerous category that includes a collision or
near- collision. Nationwide, the number of dangerous runway incursions
dropped from 69 in fiscal year 1999 to 37 in 2002, said John Pallante, a
deputy director of the FAA. While the decline coincided with a decrease in
total airline travel, he said the agency is not convinced of a
cause-and-effect relationship. 

Construction of a new runway and the continuing increase in flights by
small, regional jets will complicate traffic at Minneapolis-St. Paul, and
officials will seek to correct "hot spots" - places that can confuse pilots
and vehicle drivers into taking wrong turns or crossing intersections
inappropriately.


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