Held On Anniversary Of Tenerife Accident

On Tuesday, the 30th anniversary of the deadliest runway incursion in history, NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker called for more to be done to prevent similar incidents.

It was March 27, 1977 when two Boeing 747s collided on a foggy runway in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, killing 583 people. In the last 17 years, the NTSB chief noted, an additional 63 people have been killed in the United States alone by similar runway collisions.

In many more cases, disasters were averted by margins too small for anyone's comfort. An animation showing a near-miss at Denver International Airport (DEN) was shown at the conference. As Aero-News reported in January, a Frontier Airlines A319 was about to touch down on the runway when the pilots and controllers spotted a Key Lime commuter plane that had "strayed" onto the runway.

"We’ve been living on luck for too long," Rosenker said, reports the New York Times. "That is not a good way to run a national aviation system."

Nearly every day on the nation's runways, a plane gets too close to another aircraft or even a vehicle on the ground. Again at DEN, a United Airlines 737 was on a take-off roll when the crew saw a snowplow on the runway. The pilots applied maximum braking power and reverse thrusters to stop before they collided.

The conference brought together Investigative and Regulatory Panelists from the NTSB, Canada's Transportation Safety Bureau, the FAA, USAF and USN. Pilot and Controller groups were also in attendance as well as Industry representatives, who would be directly effected by any changes made.

Three different airports are currently testing systems to combat the problem. Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport has been testing a series of ground based stoplights, while Long Beach uses on sensors in the runway pavement -- similar to street traffic signals -- to alert planes on approach to land that the runway is not clear. And Spokane International Airport in Washington is testing yet another system where short range radar is used.

Last week, the FAA announced it is working on a GPS type mapping solution for pilots to use in the cockpits providing them with real time runway status information. Jeffrey Loague, Director for the Air Traffic Organization - Safety Services' Risk Reduction Information Office, has said that a product could be on the market around mid year.

FAA Administrator Marion Blakey has said that a system providing a screen in every cockpit to illustrate a crew's position as well as all other planes on the ground at an airport, using data from GPS would be the long term goal.

Anticipation for something to be done is evident, as one conference attendee, Capt. Mitchell Serber of the Air Line Pilots Association urged: "Where we have failed is putting these technologies together out in the field. Let's get on with it."

FMI: www.ntsb.gov