FAA landing proposal troubles airline pilots

May 15, 2000
Web posted at: 11:23 p.m. EDT (0323 GMT)

From Correspondent Carl Rochelle

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A looming confrontation between the Federal Aviation Administration and the Airline Pilots Association could mean a slowdown at airports across the nation this summer.

The FAA is attempting to speed up airline traffic by requiring planes that land on long runways to stop after landing and allow other aircraft to cross at intersecting runways. In aviation language, it's called LAHSO, for "landing and hold short operations."

But the Airline Pilots Association says it is concerned that a pilot ordered to hold short may not be able to comply, for a variety of reasons, ranging from inexperience with the procedure to an emergency requiring the crew to reject the landing and go around. The ALPA says that could be a prescription for an accident.

	MESSAGE BOARD
Air safety

"We basically have people, whose training we cannot rely on, allowed to do 'land and hold short' against an airliner full of people," says Capt. Paul McCarthy of ALPA.

So the pilots union has sent a message to its members recommending that they refuse any LAHSO approaches if its concerns about the proposal have not been resolved by May 27, the date that new FAA rules are scheduled to go into effect.

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, which represents general aviation -- everything from training planes to corporate jets -- says there's never been an accident from the procedure, and it doesn't accept the airline pilots' claims.

"We frankly don't understand their claim," said Warren Morningstar of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. "We're all trained to the basic same rules. We all have been trained how to land and stop the aircraft in the specified distance."

A former FAA official says the FAA changes can't work if there is contention.

"I don't believe it can work when there's contention between the pilots, or the controllers, and the airlines," said Michael Goldfarb, who is now a private aviation consultant. "That's not a workable situation. No one benefits, and safety can be affected."

FAA officials, who will meet with the ALPA on Tuesday, say they should be able deal with the airline pilots' concerns. But if they can't work out their differences, balking pilots could put a crimp in efforts by the FAA and the airlines to deal with flight delays already forecast for the heavy summer travel season.

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Federal Aviation Administration
Air Line Pilots Association
The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association

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