The Allied Pilots
Association (APA), collective bargaining agent for the 13,000
pilots of American Airlines, expressed its support today for the
Federal Aviation Administration's upcoming change to an air traffic
clearance called "taxi into position and hold" or TIPH.
Although APA supports the move to tighten rules for using TIPH, the
union urges FAA Administrator Marion Blakey to:
1. Implement the Airport Movement Area Safety System
(AMASS).
2. Install Airport Surface Detection Equipment, Model X ground
radar system.
3. Adequately staff control towers.
These actions would ensure safer implementation of the new
procedure and increase the number of airports that would qualify to
use it.
TIPH allows an aircraft to taxi onto the runway and stop --
while awaiting clearance to actually begin its takeoff roll when a
safe interval behind the departing aircraft is achieved.
Controllers use TIPH to expedite departures by lining up airplanes
on the runway while aircraft that have already landed clear the
runway, or while traffic crosses the runway downfield. TIPH
procedures can save considerable time when successive takeoffs or
landings are in progress from the same runway.
The FAA has issued a general notice to all traffic control
towers revising the procedure, effective today. The notice places
significant restrictions on when the procedure can be used, and
requires the facility's manager to justify its use in writing. The
manager must also specify how the facility will meet the new
restrictions.
There have been several
high-profile incidents involving this procedure recently,
culminating in the three-way operational error at Los Angeles
International Airport on Feb. 17 involving a SkyWest commuter
aircraft, an Air Canada jet and a Southwest Airlines jet. The FAA
complied with recommendations from the National Transportation
Safety Board -- which has criticized the procedure for several
years -- and mounted an internal review and risk analysis, which
resulted in the general notice.
"We applaud the FAA's action to improve safety on our runways,"
said Captain Mike Leone, APA Safety Committee chairman.
"The risk factors the FAA found in its review are real, and the
changes mandated in this notice will significantly mitigate those
risks."
The new requirements to use the procedure prohibit the tower
controller from working other positions combined with their primary
runway responsibility. The prohibited combinations include
controllers who would be responsible for more than one runway, or
for runways on other parts of the airport. Also, any existing
runway safety scanning equipment must be operational at an airport
in order for the procedure to be used there. The objective of these
restrictions is to reduce distractions and ensure that the
controller has the maximum amount of support available.
Facility managers at
the nation's busiest airports have been encouraged to accomplish
the required internal reviews and paperwork as quickly as possible
in order to ensure that they can continue to use the procedure
after March 20.
Controllers have indicated concern that FAA's tower facilities
are not staffed sufficiently for compliance with these new
requirements. APA believes that decisions on whether to address
known safety risks cannot be based on administrative issues.
Travelers depend on us to keep the safety of our air traffic system
our overriding value and concern. APA supports the FAA's efforts to
improve that safety. We have urged the leaders of the FAA to not be
deterred from implementing these new requirements.