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Aviation History
2002
2002 - 1690.PDF
In Europe there is little data available on runway incursion incidents, but available evidence suggests the threat is just as great as in the USA DAVID KAMINSKI-MORROW / LONDON Any illusion that the runway incursion problem was really only a US issue was dispelled on 8 October last year when a departing SAS Boeing MD-87 thundered into the fog at Milan Linate Airport, oblivious to a business jet which had strayed on to the active runway. In the wake of the loss of both aircraft, all 114 on board and four airport workers, European airport and air traffic authorities were left pondering a stark lesson in their own vul nerability to the incursion menace. Ironically, the pan-European air traffic management (ATM) body Eurocontrol had set up a Runway Safety Task Force just three months before the Linate collision to boost research into the incursion problem. This month, the agency is scheduled to hold the latest in a string of meetings to assess progress on the year-old programme. It hopes the effort will generate enough data to allow it to build a solid anti-incur sion strategy, and lead to an initial set of runway safety recommendations as early as September this year. "Very little data exists on runway safety occurrences in Europe ," says the organisa tion. "No safety trend can be identified from the limited statistics and the need for a deeper understanding is apparent." Eurocontrol member states collectively reported just 48 runway incursions for 1999, a figure typical of the previous decade. Safety Regulation Unit head Peter Stastny says that, while runway safety is of serious concern, Europe's focus has tended to be on the air proximity and level-bust [altitude breaching] problem, on which far more data has been submitted. Stastny says that part of the difficulty has been convincing national authorities to hand over the information. In its April 2001 Performance Review Commission report, Eurocontrol found that only 20 member states contributed safety-related occurrence data in 1999 - the latest year for which comprehensive figures were available. Stastny says this is not unusual, adding: "States treat safety data very much as a national issue. They might have a reporting system, but be reluctant to let the summaries go." To improve matters Eurocontrol has been gathering information on ATM- related incidents, including runway incur sions, since 1999 under a project linked with the development of a harmonised incident-reporting database - a project known as the Tool Kit for ATM Occurrence Investigation (TOKAI). "This had already given us some idea on the scale of the problem," says Jacques Beaufays, who heads the runway safety division within Eurocontrol's Safety, Quality Management and Standardisation unit. "It was a way of triggering wider data collection." Having already ploughed through the existing data files of national airspace authorities to lay the foundation, the Eurocontrol task force put together a run way safety survey and distributed it via the mainstream aviation organisations: includ ing the International Air Transport Association, the International Civil Aviation Organisation, the Joint Aviation Authorities, pilots' and air traffic con- "The responses are telling us that runway incursion is an issue in Europe" GEORGE PAULSON, DIRECTOR OF EUROCONTROL SAFETY DIRECTORATE trollers' unions and Airports Council International, in an attempt to analyse the factors which cause incursions. The task force will also make use of US Federal Aviation Administration data, including the agency's "severity matrix" for measur ing the seriousness of incursion incidents, to provide data comparisons and establish whether the US agency's conclusions can be considered valid in a European context. Initial survey results on occurrences in Europe covered almost 1,850 responses, nearly 95% of them from pilots. One-quar ter of respondents claimed to have seen or been involved in a runway incursion in the previous two years - and 46% of those considered the potential for collision to have been big. The most prevalent contrib utory factors, they reported, were problems in radio phraseology and language profi ciency, airport layout and guidance, and air traffic control procedures. More than half did not know whether their primary airport had a specific runway safety report ing scheme. Of the remainder, one-third stated that no such scheme existed. Airport variation Any task force recommendations, says Beaufays, will have their basis in ICAO rules. But he stresses that a key difficulty facing the task force is the variation between airports - strategic measures suit able for one location might make little dif ference at another. Instead of issuing a broad set of specific guidelines, Eurocontrol will have to address the problem by advis ing the adoption of a tailor-made safety- management approach. "Milan's accident has accelerated the [task force] timescale," says George Paulson, director of the Eurocontrol safety, airspace, airports and information services directorate. He is reluctant to pre-empt any analysis while data-collection work continues, but he says: "The responses are telling us that runway incursion is an issue in Europe." Given the FAA's experience on the mat ter, there is intense interest in whether fun damental differences exist between US and European airports which, in turn, might provide an insight into the problem. Complexity of airport geometry is one ele ment under examination. Intersecting run ways are not as common in Europe as in the USA. Many of Europe's main hubs, such as London Heathrow, Frankfurt, Munich and Oslo Gardermoen conduct parallel runway operations, using dedi cated departure and arrival runways. If these parallels are either side of the central terminal area , the need for aircraft to cross active runways is reduced. Aeroports de Paris, which witnessed a fatal incursion at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport in May 2000, has worked not only 32 4-10 JUNE 2002 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL www.flightinternational.com
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