The rate of close calls on airport runways in the United States is up over last year and the risk of a collision is high, a U.S. government investigator said Thursday.
Gerald Dillingham, the General Accountability Office's top expert on aviation safety, told a House of Representatives panel that there were 24 of the most serious kinds of runway incursions — defined as an event in which any aircraft, vehicle or person intrudes in space reserved for takeoff or landing — in fiscal 2008.
That's the same number of serious incursions as last year. But since air travel and airport operations have declined this year, the rate of serious incidents — measured by number of incidents per one million takeoffs and landings — has increased about 10 per cent, Dillingham said.
Both the number and rate of all types of runway incursions, ranging from near collisions to minor incidents in which there was no threat to safety, also are up, he said.
"We all agree … that [the Federal Aviation Administration] has given a higher priority to runway safety," including following several GAO recommendations, Dillingham said. "Despite these actions the risk of runway collisions is still high."
Serious incidents down from high of 53 in 2001
FAA Chief Operating Officer Hank Krakowski said the agency has made "solid progress" this year. He noted that the 24 serious incidents in 2007 were down from a high of 53 incidents in 2001.
Runway incursions are a top safety concern internationally and among U.S. air safety officials. The deadliest disaster in commercial aviation history was a runway incursion in 1977, when 582 were killed in the ground collision of two Boeing 747s at the Tenerife airport in the Canary Islands.
Since 1990, 112 people have died in seven U.S. runway incursions, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
In December, the GAO warned that air travellers face a high risk of a catastrophic collision on U.S. airport runways because of faltering federal leadership, malfunctioning technology and overworked air traffic controllers.
Dillingham and Krakowski agreed that mistakes by pilots and controllers rather than technology problems were key factors in many incursions.
The most recent serious runway incursion occurred last week at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Allentown, Pa. A United Express flight with 60 passengers had to brake and swerve, avoiding by about three metres a small plane that had landed ahead of it on the same runway.
The National Air Traffic Controllers Union said a trainee in the airport's control tower mistakenly thought the Cessna had left the runway and cleared the United Express flight for takeoff.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/09/25/airport-collisions.html
Fonte: Flight Safety Information 30/09/2008.
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In a tri-partite deal with a New England-based seller and Herndon, VA Internet domain-name registrar Network Solutions,
http://www.networksolutions.com
suburban New York anti-FAA aero-activist group Quiet Rockland today announced its acquisition of the 3 most critical Internet Uniform Resource Locator (URL) domain-names relating to failed FAA Acting Administrator Robert Allan (“Bobby”) Sturgell:
http://www.bobbysturgell.com
http://www.bobbysturgell.org
http://www.bobbysturgell.net
The transaction was handled by Quiet Rockland co-founder John J. Tormey III, Esq., and his law practice, John J. Tormey III, PLLC:
http://www.tormey.org
The arrangement with Network Solutions accords Quiet Rockland the unilateral option of an up-to-100-year extension of each domain-name registration term. Further specifics of the purchase remain undisclosed.
Said Tormey:
“Quiet Rockland has now struck another blow for justice, fair treatment of air traffic controllers (ATCs), and historical accuracy. In the last year at the helm, Bobby Sturgell ‘piloted’ his Tombstone Agency FAA directly into the ground – abusing his ATC workforce, continually threatening our safety, and putting us Americans all at risk while doing so. We therefore return the courtesy to him and his awful FAA. Quiet Rockland today dedicates these 3 permanent First Amendment-protected electronic-memorial reciprocal-tombstones to Bobby Sturgell’s abysmal, morally-bereft legacy of putting profits over people and failing the American citizenry. Now, election-result irrespective, whether or not Bobby Sturgell follows through on his earlier-stated intention to quit his post by November, each person accessing the Internet worldwide who searches Bobby Sturgell’s name at any time in the next 100 years, will be virtually-certain to take heed of Sturgell’s well-earned agency cyber-posterity heritage of FAAilure. This is Quiet Rockland’s virtual parting gift to Bobby Sturgell.
“Quiet Rockland also intends this action to be a warning to those other aero-head officials, misguided enough to think of threatening our interests in the future. As but one additional example, we expect that FAA NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign Project Manager Steven (Steve) Kelley will now want to carefully review the website at the also-newly-acquired URL
http://www.stevekelleyfaa.com
This site permanently chronicles Steve Kelley’s own role in the 1985 Fairview, NJ aircrash killing 6 people – an event which Steve Kelley himself worked as an ATC. We look forward to exercising our 100-year option on that URL filing as well.
“More communications will follow. Our rock-solid foundational message is clear. Whether a federal official, or anyone else – if you threaten Quiet Rockland’s interests or those of any ATC, expect a response – and expect that response to follow you throughout your career, your life, and perhaps beyond, in, at minimum, electronically-memorialized posterity. We have the resources. We have the technology. And, we have the will. FAA management will be repopulated with responsible personnel. The NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign will be defeated.
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