Runway safety

Several terms fall under the flight safety topic of runway safety, including incursion, excursion, and confusion. Terms such as runway event or runway accident are used for such incidents.

Runway incursion involves an aircraft, and a second aircraft, vehicle, or person. It is defined by ICAO and the U.S. FAA as "Any occurrence at an aerodrome involving the incorrect presence of an aircraft, vehicle or person on the protected area of a surface designated for the landing and take off of aircraft."[1][2]

Runway excursion is an incident involving only a single aircraft, where it makes an inappropriate exit from the runway. This can happen because of pilot error, poor weather, or a fault with the aircraft. Overrun is a type of excursion where the aircraft is unable to stop before the end of the runway. An example is Air India Express Flight 812 in Mangalore, India in 2010. Further examples can be found in the overruns category.

Runway confusion is when a single aircraft makes "the unintentional use of the wrong runway, or a taxiway, for landing or take-off".[3] Notable examples of a runway confusion incidents include Singapore Airlines Flight 006 and Comair Flight 5191.

Runway excursion is the most frequent type of landing accident, slightly ahead of runway incursion.[4] For runway accidents recorded between 1995 and 2007, 96% were of the 'excursion' type.[4]

The U.S. FAA publishes an annual report on runway safety issues, available from the FAA website.[2][5][6] New systems designed to improve runway safety, such as Airport Movement Area Safety System (AMASS) and Runway Awareness and Advisory System (RAAS), are discussed in the report. AMASS narrowly prevented a serious collision in the 2007 San Francisco International Airport runway incursion.

In the 1990s the U.S. FAA conducted a study about a civilian version of 3D military thrust vectoring to prevent jetliner catastrophes [7]

Runway condition describes a runway's current status in relation to current meteorological conditions and air safety.

According to the JAR definition, a runway with water patches or that is flooded is considered to be contaminated.

Some instruments for runway safety include ILS, LLWAS, Microwave landing system, Transponder landing system, as well as Runway Awareness and Advisory System.

See also

Runway safety area

References

  1. ↑ http://www.faa.gov/runwaysafety/ FAA Runway Safety webpage, Retrieved 2008-12-14.
  2. 1 2 FAA Runway Safety, Retrieved 2009-04-02
  3. ↑ http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/03/14/222239/comment-safety-excursions.html "Safety Excursions", FlightGlobal.com, Retrieved 2008-12-15.
  4. 1 2 http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/03/14/222223/runway-excursion-most-frequent-type-of-landing-accident-flight-safety.html "Runway excursion most frequent type of landing accident: Flight Safety Foundation " FlightGlobal.com, Retrieved 2008-12-14.
  5. ↑ Various runway safety reports
  6. ↑ Runway Safety Statistics
  7. ↑ “Multiaxis Thrust Vectoring Flight Control Vs Catastrophic Failure Prevention”, Reports to U.S. Dept. of Transportation/FAA, Technical Center, ACD-210, FAA X88/0/6FA/921000/4104/T1706D, FAA Res. Benjamin Gal-Or, Grant-Award No: 94-G-24, CFDA, No. 20.108, Dec. 26, 1994; "Vectored Propulsion, Supermanoeuvreability, and Robot Aircraft", by Benjamin Gal-Or, Springer Verlag, 1990, ISBN 0-387-97161-0, 3-540-97161-0.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, February 10, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.