"LAX Commission says safety can't wait"

Thursday, January 3, 2008

LAX Commission says safety can't wait 
By Art Marroquin
The Torrance (CA) Daily Breeze


In the wake of a congressional report that blasted Los Angeles International
Airport for its high rate of runway incursions, airport commissioners Monday
called for immediate measures to heighten safety on the north airfield.

In the meantime, the commission signaled that it intends on Jan. 14 to ask
for a speedy environmental study examining how LAX's parallel northern
runways should be reconfigured.

"If there were to be an accident, I don't think that we could ever forgive
ourselves for not having done anything, nor would we be forgiven for not
doing anything," Airport Commissioner Walter Zifkin said. "All we can do now
is do whatever we can to expedite this, to speed this up, to no longer
delay."

Environmental reports typically take 18 to 24 months to complete. To hurry
along construction of a new runway, the commission might agree to hire
contractors and designers while the environmental study takes place, rather
than wait until a final report is released, according to airport commission
President Alan Rothenberg.

In the short term, however, airport staff will study whether improved safety
lights and radar systems should be installed at the northern runways, and
whether more air traffic controllers should be hired at the LAX tower.

"We are an accident waiting to happen, literally and figuratively, and we
want to avoid that," Rothenberg said. "We want to take all the necessary
steps in the meantime, and then move as quickly as we can once we know what
the solution is."

The commission's call for a speedy runway review comes less than two weeks
after the Government Accountability Office found a "high risk" of close
calls between aircraft maneuvering on the ground at the nation's airports,
including LAX.

Fifty-five runway incursions have been reported at LAX since 2001, eight of
which occurred during the 2007 fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, according
to the Federal Aviation Administration. The most serious of those incidents
was reported Aug. 16, when two jetliners came within 37 feet of each other
in the northern airfield at LAX.

"All reports show that if we don't move that north runway, there will be a
catastrophic accident," said Airport Commissioner Fernando Torres-Gil. "We
may or may not be liable legally, but we will certainly be liable morally in
the court of public opinion."

The FAA has long warned LAX to reconfigure the northern runways, arguing
that improving airfield geometry would heighten safety.

"Ultimately the geometry of the airfield has to be fixed, and it has to be
fixed so that in the event of human error, we have done everything we can to
prevent an accident," Zifkin said.

Airport Commissioner Valeria Velasco argued that other safety measures
should be given a chance before the runways are shifted.

"No matter how you configure the runways, it's human error," Velasco said.
"Moving the runways, in and of itself, isn't going to solve all our
problems."

The commission agreed to move ahead with its own runway study, even though a
$2 million "independent review" by NASA Ames Research Center continues to
languish. The commission requested the study in August, hoping that NASA
would list the best options for the northern runway.

The parameters for the report are still being negotiated, according to Gina
Marie Lindsey, executive director of Los Angeles World Airports, the city
agency that operates LAX.

Lindsey said part of the problem with NASA stems from the fact that the
agency has shifted its priorities to studying space, rather than aviation.

"Can we just tell NASA that we'd like to have our safety issues solved
before they make it to Mars, OK?" Rothenberg told Lindsey.

The NASA study was requested after five previous reports completed by
aviation consulting groups called for moving one of the northern runways at
least 340 feet toward the communities of Westchester and Playa del Rey.

"We have study after study, and they all seem to come to the same
conclusion," Airport Commissioner Joseph Aredas said. "The conclusion is we
have a safety problem. I don't think any commissioner sitting up here wants
to feel responsible for the loss of one life, or the loss of 100 lives."


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