"Airport Liability: Airports Ignoring Runway Safety Standards?"

Monday, September 12, 2005

Exclusive: Airports Ignoring Runway Safety Standards?
Report: 40 Percent of N.Y./N.J. Airports Don't Meet FAA Standards
The Eyewitness News Investigators
WABC-TV Ch 7 (ABC), New York (NY)


New York - A disturbing story tonight about airport safety. The Eyewitness
News Investigators have discovered that many airports ignore federal safety
recommendations about runway safety.

They ignore them because the recommendations are voluntary - a dangerous
situation - according to many pilots. 
Jim Hoffer joins us with his investigation. 

When a jumbo jet ran off the runway last month in Toronto, we started
looking into runway safety here in New York and around the country. 

To our surprise, we discovered many runways don't have adequate overrun
areas to prevent disaster when planes skid out of control, something that
happens more often than you think. 

1984: A DC-10 runs off the runway and at JFK injuring 12. 

1989: a 737 skids off the runway at LaGuardia, killing two. 

Just over a month ago, another jet careens off a runway in Toronto - all of
these accidents are reminders of the dangers of overrun accidents,
especially when airports fail to meet the FAA safety standard. 

That standard calls for 1,000 feet at the end of the runway or a
soft-concrete arresting bed that can stop out-of-control planes. 

Terry McVenes, Airline Pilots Assoc.: "We have to ensure that these runway
safety areas are there so that we can prevent accidents from happening." 

An Eyewitness News investigation has found that for almost thirty years, the
National Transportation Safety Board has warned the FAA to make it
"mandatory that all airports have adequate runway safety areas." for overrun
protection. 

Despite the warnings, the FAA has never made the overrun standard mandatory
and, in fact, we've learned that 38 percent or about 380 runways nationwide
currently don't have adequate runway safety areas. The FAA wouldn't tell us
which ones and would only say that it's currently doing a survey to assess
the problem. 

J.P. Tristani, Former Commercial Airline Pilot: "The FAA is doing what it
does best, procrastinate." 

Our investigation has also found that at the four New York/New Jersey
airports, 40-percent of the runways don't meet the FAA overrun safety
standard. 

One of those runways is at Teterboro Airport, where last February a plane
skidded off the runway, across Route 46 and slammed into a building,
injuring 15 people. 

J.P. Tristani: "It could have been a huge disaster, with lots of loss of
life and exploding aircraft in a building." 

But what's being made out of this special aerated cement in a New Jersey
factory could have stopped the Teterboro plane like a bee on fly paper. 

Kent Thompson, Esco: "When an aircraft goes off the runway, the wheels crush
the material and as they do the aircraft sinks in." 

This system is used when runways don't have the extra 1,000 feet of overrun
protection. The Port Authority helped to design it and installed the world's
first one back in 1996 at JFK. 

A year later, the system was already saving lives by stopping a plane filled
with passengers from plunging into the water. In 2003, it saved a cargo jet
and earlier this year, it stopped a 747 that slid off an icy JFK runway. 

Kent Thompson, Esco: "They changed the tires on the aircraft and it was back
in the air." 

In the middle of our investigation, the Port Authority announced it was
speeding up the installation of an arrestor system at Teterboro to be
completed by the fall next year. Still, nearly two years after the accident
... 

J.P. Tristani, Former Commercial Airline Pilot: "They should have been
moving expeditiously." 

As a comparison, we checked with Burbank Airport in California - where a
plane ran off the runway in 2000. A spokesman there says it had an arrestor
system installed and operating within eight months. 

The Port Authority says it is working as quickly as it can to install the
system at Teterboro. It wants to make sure it's done right.

On the Web:

Airport Liability: Little Rock Airport Says It Will Not Appeal $2.1 Million
Judgment
 http://archives.californiaaviation.org/airport/msg35838.html

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