Ask the pilot: What's behind the recent rise in runway near misses?

Patrick Smith — Fri, 09 May 2008 03:00:00 PDT

Chances are you've come across one or more recent stories about the marked rise in so-called runway incursions at airports across America. That's a euphemism for when a plane or other vehicle erroneously enters or crosses a runway without permission from air traffic control, setting up a potential collision hazard. In FAA-speak, it is "any occurrence at an aerodrome involving the incorrect presence of an aircraft, vehicle, or person on the protected area of a surface designated for the landing and take off of aircraft."

Not every incursion is the proverbial "near miss." The vast majority are in fact harmless. But the numbers are rising and a handful of incidents were indeed close calls. In some respects, the uptick is no real surprise. After all, there are twice as many airplanes flying today as there were 25 years ago. But the numbers don't match -- incursions have been rising well out of proportion with traffic growth. (In 2007, commercial air carriers were involved in eight separate incursions deemed by the FAA to be "serious.") The problem isn't the volume of planes, per se, but the congested environments in which many of them operate. LaGuardia, Reagan National, Boston and JFK are among airports that were laid out decades ago for a fraction of today's capacity. Their crisscrossing runways and lacework taxiways are inherently more hazardous than the parallel and staggered layouts seen at newer airports. That does not imply these locations are unsafe, but they are more challenging for both crews and air traffic controllers, particularly during spells of bad weather and low visibility.

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Ask the pilot: Dangerous airlines, deadly airports, foggy landings and other hazards of flying: Sorting out facts from fancy

Patrick Smith — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:30:00 PDT

My comments last week on the recent crash in Congo elicited the following letter:

As an aviation professional in Africa, I am very familiar with the operations of Hewa Bora Airways, and have flown in and out of Goma airport, where the accident occurred, on several occasions.
Previously, the 8,000-foot runway in Goma was sufficiently long for most aircraft. But in 2002 a nearby volcano erupted, and lava flow cut the available distance to 5,000 feet. Back in colonial times, the area beyond the runway was fenced off, providing a clear way. When the volcano erupted, destroying homes and businesses near the airport, people relocated directly onto the airport itself, constructing houses, businesses, mosques and markets there. Today there are dwellings as close as a hundred feet from the runway.
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Salon: Ask the Pilot

Ask the pilot: What's behind the recent rise in runway near misses?

Ask the pilot: Dangerous airlines, deadly airports, foggy landings and other hazards of flying: Sorting out facts from fancy