Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
More than 1,200 did so in 2008. The number of fully trained profes-
sional controllers at the nation's airports is now the lowest since 1992.
Fifty-two percent of controllers at twenty-fi ve airports work six-day
weeks, a schedule not conducive to improved safety. Also, the Federal
Aviation Administration's Offi ce of Runway Safety has not produced a
national runway safety plan since 2002, went two years without a per-
manent director, and has had a 45 percent staff cut since 2003. Clearly
safety considerations at America's airports are not getting the attention
they deserve. It may require a major airport disaster and many deaths
to change the way things are operating.
Federal Aviation Administration facilities include 420 air traffi c
control centers. A report from the DOT inspector general in 2008 said
that FAA facilities have an expected useful life of twenty-fi ve to thirty
years. But 59 percent of FAA facilities are more than thirty years old.
The average age of its control towers is twenty-nine years old, and its
air route traffi c control centers average forty-three years old.
58
Because of increasing air traffi c and the expense of airport expansion,
near misses on the ground at overcrowded airports are becoming one of
the most serious safety concerns in civil aviation. The danger arises when
airports try to alleviate bottlenecks by adding runways, raising the risk
of accidental incursions, where an aircraft or vehicle becomes a collision
hazard by venturing onto a runway being used for takeoffs and landings.
In the 2007 budget year that ended September 30, 2007, 370 incidents
were recorded in the United States.
59
There were twenty-four serious
incursions during the period, where a collision was narrowly averted. In
Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 2007, two passenger jets missed each other
by less than 30 feet. That same year at the same airport a United fl ight
with 133 passengers on board missed a turn on the taxiway and entered
an active runway where a Delta jet was about to land with 167
passengers.
The international pilots' union blames poorly designed airports as
the primary cause of incursions. An FAA study found that at the
well-designed Washington Dulles airport, there were only four incur-
sions between 1997 and 2000, compared to Los Angeles Airport,
with a complex layout of multiple intersecting runways and taxiways,
which had twenty-nine incursions. The expected increase in the volume
of airport traffi c greatly increases the potential for near misses and
fatal accidents. The dangers caused by poor airport design and high
traffi c density, complicated operational procedures, overworked con-
trollers, nonstandard markings, and poor comprehension of English,
