Nolen renewed that call at the summit on Wednesday.Īmong the questions he posed for consideration by the assembled experts: “In light of these recent close calls and the attention being focused on even the most routine of go-arounds, are we emphasizing efficiency over safety? How much of what we see can be attributed to the sudden resurgence in demand following the pandemic?” In February, acting FAA administrator Billy Nolen sent a memo to the agency instructing staff to “stare into the data and ask hard questions.” While incident numbers might not be on a dramatically upward trajectory, they are causing alarm. “However, reducing the risk of them occurring remains one of the FAA’s highest safety priorities and is a shared responsibility that encompasses pilots, air traffic controllers and airport vehicle drivers.” “The vast majority of runway incursions are not serious occurrences,” the FAA said in a statement. The agency did not provide specifics about how those incidents will be categorized. ![]() Most of the incursions involving commercial airliners that have made headlines this year are not yet entered into the FAA database. However, there were 22 category A incidents in 2007, the sharpest peak in the past two decades. Both 20 saw seven of them - up on three in 2019 and four in 2018, according to the FAA’s runway incursion database. And there’s been a recent uptick in those cases. The latter is deemed “category A” - the most serious of runway incursions, “in which a collision is narrowly avoided,” according to the FAA. And another at Florida’s Treasure Coast International, when a fire truck entered the runway as a business jet was taking off. These include an event on January 18, in which a Boeing 737 took off from Dallas Love Field without ATC authorization fortunately no other traffic was involved. That figure includes all incursions, including those involving general aviation aircraft. The FAA says most incursions are not classed as serious - few of the 120 or so logged in January 2023 have made headlines. The number of accidents has remained relatively constant, according to FAA analysis through 2016, and it shows the cumulative risk trending down. The Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST), formed in 1997, encouraged a culture of data sharing and no-blame safety reporting. Or are they?ĭata from the FAA published in 2017 showed that reports of runway incursions have been on a largely upward trend since 1997, and steadily rising since 2011. It seems like stories like this are becoming increasingly common. The FAA, which is also investigating the recent spate of incidents, says it has not found a common cause. It is also investigating a December incident, in which a United Airlines Boeing 777 jet departing from Hawaii plunged towards the ocean after takeoff, coming within 775 feet of sea level. The National Transportation Safety Board, which looks into incidents, is now investigating all six events. ![]() The JetBlue aircraft “took evasive action and initiated a climb-out,” according to an FAA statement. In late February, air traffic controllers at Boston averted a crash when a Learjet took off without clearance as a Jetblue flight was coming in to land on an intersecting runway. The aircraft came within 100 feet of each other. Perhaps closest to disaster was an incident on February 4, when FedEx cargo pilots were landing at Austin, only to see a Southwest plane was on the runway, about to take off.Īir Traffic Control had cleared both planes, despite the airport being wreathed in fog. ![]() Another go-around incident occurred at Sarasota Bradenton International Airport in Florida. At California’s Burbank Airport, a Mesa Airlines plane had to make a go-around - essentially an aborted landing - when its crew realized a SkyWest plane was taking off from the same runway. At their closest, says the FAA, the two were 1,170 feet apart.įebruary saw a rash of incidents. Inouye International Airport as a cargo aircraft was coming in to land. Ten days later, a United Airlines jet crossed a runway at Honolulu’s Daniel K. On January 13, an American Airlines jet crossed a runway at New York’s JFK International Airport as a Delta Air Lines aircraft was taking off. On paper, it has not been a great year, thanks mainly to the series of headline-making “runway incursions” - essentially near misses between aircraft that made headlines and prompted serious questions about aviation risks.
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