The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday referred to as on airways to train “continued vigilance” after a string of high-profile close to misses on runways, together with at Kennedy Worldwide Airport in New York in January.
The agency’s notice stated that whereas its knowledge does “not replicate a rise in incidents and occurrences, the potential severity of those occasions is regarding.”
The F.A.A. issued the bulletin after holding a safety summit with airways, airport operators and employees final week to deal with current “incidents throughout the aviation system,” together with unruly passengers and close to misses on runways at main airports.
“I believe I converse for all of us, and positively the touring public, once I say these occasions are regarding,” the F.A.A.’s appearing administrator, Billy Nolen, said in his opening remarks on the summit. “They aren’t what we have now come to count on throughout a time of unprecedented security within the U.S. air transportation system.”
There are greater than 45,000 flights every day in U.S. nationwide airspace, according to the F.A.A. In current months, planes got here unnervingly shut on runways in New York, Texas, Boston, Hawaii, Florida and Virginia, outdoors Washington, D.C.
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In January, a Delta Air Strains aircraft needed to abort its takeoff after an American Airways aircraft crossed about 1,000 ft in entrance of it at Kennedy. In February, two planes narrowly averted a collision at Austin-Bergstrom Worldwide Airport in Texas after a FedEx cargo aircraft aborted its touchdown on the identical runway {that a} Southwest Airways flight had simply been cleared to take off from.
Although these occasions have acquired appreciable consideration, there has not been a major enhance in what the F.A.A. calls “runway incursions”— occasions involving the “incorrect presence” of an plane, car or particular person in a touchdown or takeoff space.
In 2022, there have been 1,732 runway incursions, according to the F.A.A. To this point this yr, there have been 669. In 2019, earlier than the pandemic curtailed air travel, there have been 1,753 runway incursions.
“The overwhelming majority of runway incursions aren’t severe occurrences,” the F.A.A. stated in an announcement. “Nonetheless, lowering the chance of them occurring stays one of many F.A.A.’s highest security priorities and is a shared accountability that encompasses pilots, air visitors controllers and airport car drivers.”
The security summit was one in every of a collection of steps the F.A.A. has taken in current months to attempt to tackle issues about aviation security.
In February, Mr. Nolen introduced in a “name to motion” memo that he was forming a security assessment workforce to look at aviation in the USA, together with a centered look on air visitors techniques. He stated within the memo that he was additionally asking the Commercial Aviation Safety Team, an aviation security group throughout the F.A.A. that works with the trade and regulators, to assessment knowledge to establish rising security traits that wanted consideration.
The bulletin issued on Wednesday listed suggestions for airways, together with to ensure they adhered to plain procedures and to guage their threat mitigation procedures to see if extra motion is required.
The F.A.A. stated in an emailed assertion that it was beginning the method to challenge a rule that will require cockpit voice recorders to seize 25 hours of data, together with communication among the many flight crew, engine sounds, alarms and different noises, for the F.A.A. to guage. Presently, cockpit voice recorders save solely two hours of audio.
“We may also set up an Aviation Rulemaking Committee to discover learn how to make higher use of knowledge gathered by the airplane and its techniques, together with expanded flight knowledge monitoring,” the F.A.A. stated. “We welcome any instruments or assets Congress desires to supply to assist us do that expeditiously.”
