Takes Issue With NASA Report On Safety At The Airport

In a letter to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and LAX airport officials, FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt says it would be a "serious mistake" to not reconfigure the north portion of the airfield. The letter was in response to a study released by NASA's Ames Research Center which said any increase in safety realized by increasing the separation between the runways at the LAX north airfield would be "inconsequential."

"The status quo is not good enough for the FAA, and the city of Los Angeles should not view it as good enough for the traveling public," Babbitt wrote.

In its report, NASA officials and an academic panel said that the current configuration of the runways would lead to one death from a runway collision for every 150 million airline passengers ... or about five deaths over the next 10 years.

The Daily Breeze of Torrance, CA reports that Mayor Villaraigosa, who has been opposed to the reconfiguration, admitted that Babbitt had made some valid points, and said they would be studied as part of a review of the airport's master plan. That plan recommends separating the northern runways.

The runways are separated by only 700 feet, and the FAA has recorded 46 runway incursion at the north airfield since 1998. For instance, on March 16 of this year, a 747 failed to completely clear the runway after landing while another flight landed behind it. The FAA contends that the landing space is tight, particularly for such airplanes as the A380 and the Dreamliner. "(T)he March 16 incursion underscored the difficulty of operating large aircraft on the cramped north airfield," Babbitt wrote.

Separating the north airfield runways would be similar to a $333 million project at the south end of the airport completed two years ago.

FMI: www.faa.gov, www.lawa.org