Doubts raised about U.S. runway warning system

By Tim Dobbyn
Reuters

March 22, 2000
Web posted at: 4:30 p.m. EST (2130 GMT)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New airport safety equipment to prevent on-the-ground collisions may fail to give air traffic controllers enough time to avert such disasters, a congressional committee heard Wednesday.

National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jim Hall said a computer simulation of the equipment's performance using data from a near miss in Chicago last year showed it would have given controllers just six seconds warning.

"It is just a matter of time before we have a disastrous runway collision if more is not done to address this issue soon," Hall told the House Appropriations transportation subcommittee.

After years of delays and cost overruns, FAA plans to begin deploying the equipment -- the Airport Movement Area Safety System (AMASS) -- starting at the San Francisco International Airport in September.

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) chief Jane Garvey told the subcommittee that her agency realized the seriousness of the problem but that there was no simple, single solution to runway incursions.

"We know it is a critical issue and we have to tackle it head on," Garvey said, mentioning better pilot and controller training as some of the other solutions.

Hall urged the agency to do more tests to prove it can provide useful warnings.

On April 1, 1999, an Air Chinacargo plane taxied onto a runway in front of a Korean Air Linesjumbo jet carrying more than 300 people at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

Hall said the pilot of the Korean Air flight managed to take off and bank to the left and away from the Chinese aircraft with a clearance of just 75 feet.

The safety board is concerned that in the six seconds of warning AMASS would have given, controllers would have needed to detect the warning, determine its nature and decide on appropriate action even before contacting the aircraft.

FAA preliminary figures show runway incursions declined slightly to 322 in 1999 from 325 in 1998, but that latest figure is still up 71 percent from 188 incidents in 1993.

Virginia Republican and subcommittee chairman Frank Wolf said he was worried those figures understated the problem.

"There is voluntary reporting of these incursions and we do have a concern over whether the number being reported is accurate," Hall agreed.

FAA is holding meetings around the country on the issue and has also encouraged pilots to come forward and discuss runway incursion experiences with a one-year program that waives any penalties in most circumstances.

Garvey said she had made runway incursions a top priority and was personally overseeing progress at regular meetings with top FAA officials.

Reuters news material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium.