Airports Don't Meet Runway Safety Standard

1010 WINS AM NY ^ | 12/9/05 | 1010 WINS AM

[chet_in_ny]

(1010 WINS) (WASHINGTON) Many older airports squeezed next to dense city neighborhoods, bodies of water or steep drop-offs don't have room to allow the 1,000-foot safety margin at the end of the runway that the federal government considers adequate.

Runway overruns can be extremely dangerous. In June 1999, an American Airlines jetliner slid past the end of the runway in Little Rock, Ark., killing nine passengers and injuring 86. And it was only the remarkable speed of the passengers' evacuation -- less than two minutes -- that prevented serious injury or death when an Air France Airbus skidded off the runway in Toronto and burst into flames in August.

The Federal Aviation Administration in the 1990s began researching a solution to the problem faced by airports that don't have enough space for their runways: putting down a bed of soft concrete to stop or slow an airplane that overruns a runway.

The agency has found that a certain light, crushable concrete will cause an airplane to decelerate. The soft concrete bed, called EMAS, for engineered material arresting systems, extends about 600 feet from the runway's end.

[chet_in_ny]

Interesting that this story runs a day after the Midway incident... Surprised La Guardia isn't mentioned.. anyone flying out of NYC knows about La Guardia's short runways. I believe the largest plane allowed out of there is the 757, more scary is backing out of the gate, planes all over the place!

[Darksheare]

Teterboro airport.
If the plane runs off the end of the runway, it says hello to a road and the building across the street.

[jz638]

oh goodie, another crisis!

[A.A. Cunningham]

What's interesting is that the accident occurred so soon after Bush signed the bill requiring EMAS or extended overruns by 2015.

LaGuardia has EMAS on both runways. Delta currently operates 767-432/ERs out of LaGuardia.

[CALawyer]

LaGuardia has EMAS on both runways

So does Bob Hope Airport (Burbank), which was prompted by the other Southwest 737 crash. Bob Hope sees FedEx and UPS A300-600s landing every weekday on its 6,000 foot east-west runway. FedEx occasionally flies the A300-600 into John Wayne Airport (Orange County), which has only a 5,700 foot runway. Takeoffs from John Wayne are even more spectacular, given the need to climb rapidly due to noise restrictions over the Newport Beach area.

[NY.SS-Bar9]

LaGuardia has EMAS on both runways.

Only on one end each - the other arresting agent is H2o.

[Modok]

How much federal money, our tax money, do you want to spend on this? What will you do if the money doesn't come?