"FAA may add runway lights at large airports to prevent collisions"

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

FAA may add runway lights to prevent collisions
By JOHN HUGHES
Bloomberg News 


WASHINGTON - U.S. aviation regulators may install special runway status
lights at large airports that turn red to warn pilots on the ground of
potential collisions, a top concern of a federal safety panel.

The Federal Aviation Administration may decide this year to seek funds from
Congress to add the lighting system at as many as 44 large airfields, said
Jeffrey Loague, an agency safety director. The lights, being tested in
Dallas-Fort Worth and San Diego, cost about $10 million per airport, he
said.

"Our results are promising," Loague told reporters today in Washington. "The
investment decision would at least look at all 44, to determine what the
best business case would be."

The National Transportation Safety Board views aircraft and other vehicles
crossing runways in use by other planes as one of aviation's top problems.
The NTSB has been pressing the FAA to act for years and has kept the issue
on its list of "most wanted" improvements.

"I'm encouraged," NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker said. "They believe they have
found something which potentially can begin the process of reducing or
eliminating these runway incursions."

About 30 of the most serious near-collisions have occurred each year from
2003 to 2006, with one-third involving commercial jets. In one incident last
month, a United Airlines 737 landing in Denver had a snowplow cross in front
of it, Rosenker said.

Accident Investigators

The NTSB, which investigates major transportation accidents and makes
recommendations, attempted to increase attention to the problem by holding a
hearing on the issue today. It reviewed incidents such as one involving a
Frontier Airlines Holdings Inc. jet that came within 50 feet of a cargo
plane last January in Denver, and a UAL Corp. United jetliner that came
within 120 feet of a cargo jet last July in Chicago. 

"We've been running on luck for too long," Rosenker said. "That is not a way
to run a national aviation safety system."

One of several solutions examined by the FAA uses lights in runway pavement
that glow red, telling pilots to halt, when a plane or vehicle is detected
on a nearby runway. Dallas tests began in 2005 and are being expanded to a
second runway there, and the San Diego evaluations began last year.

The lights work in conjunction with a Sensis Corp. device being installed in
35 airports by 2011 called Airport Surface Detection Equipment, Model X, or
ASDE-X. The device gives controllers more precise information about ground
movements, allowing them to spot potential collisions.

Other Device

Nine airports that won't have ASDE-X will be able to use lights with a
Northrop Grumman Corp. device, the Airport Movement Area Safety System, or
AMASS, which alerts controllers to possible collisions. 

The NTSB has said ASDE-X and AMASS aren't sufficient because warnings go to
controllers, not pilots. Controllers often don't have time to relay the
warnings, according to the board, which prefers an audible alert or runway
lights that warn pilots directly.

Today's NTSB hearing came on the 30th anniversary of the world's worst
aviation accident. Two Boeing Co. 747s, one belonging to Pan Am World
Airways and the other to KLM Royal Dutch Airways, collided on the runway on
the Canary Island of Tenerife, killing 583 people.

Robert Bragg, who was co-pilot of the Pan Am jet, was the board's first
witness. The Spanish government determined that the KLM jumbo jet took off
without clearance, striking the top of the Pan Am 747 on the runway ahead of
it.

The collision "was like someone had just taken a knife and sliced the top of
the plane off," Bragg said. The lesson he said he remembers 30 years later
is that "anyone, no matter how well qualified, can make a mistake."

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