Airline Systems Aim to Prevent Runway Crashes
Susan Carey and Andy Pasztor
Updated Sept. 9, 2008 11:59 p.m. ET
Airplane makers and technology companies are working to develop systems that will help prevent what safety experts say is the greatest airline hazard in the U.S. and most of Europe -- on-the-ground collisions. Alaska Airlines rolls out its Runway Awareness and Advisory System, or RAAS, a new safety feature that will guide pilots in steering aircraft through a maze of taxiways as well as make sure they have enough room to take off. (Sept. 9)
Alaska Airlines on Tuesday announced the fleet-wide installation of a new safety feature that aims to prevent jetliners from colliding on the ground. The safety tool, called Runway Awareness and Advisory System, was developed by Honeywell International Inc.
's aerospace business unit. It is part of an array of new automated cockpit aids emerging to protect passengers and crew members from runway accidents. Boeing Co.
and European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co.'s Airbus are pursuing related new ways to minimize the risks of jetliners running off the ends of runways when landing. Boeing in coming months also will decide how and when to adopt a modified version of Honeywell's runway warning system. The system eventually would become standard equipment on newly manufactured Boeing aircraft. The cockpit technology being installed at Alaska Airlines guides pilots through the seemingly routine task of steering their aircraft through a maze of taxiways and makes sure they get on the correct runway at the assigned point to take off. When they are taxiing, Alaska pilots hear a woman's voice in their headsets telling them which specific runway they are approaching, then announcing that they are on it and warning if they don't have enough acceleration room for a safe takeoff. The voice also tells them -- in a louder, more urgent tone -- if they erroneously start to roll toward takeoff on a taxiway. (Taxiways aren't safe for takeoffs.) ENLARGE
Busy runways, complex airport layouts and a mix of small and large aircraft increase the hazards for ground collisions between planes.
Loss of control in the air and flying into the ground remain big aviation killers in some foreign regions. But potential ground mishaps -- which can be just as deadly if fuel-laden airliners crash into each other or can't stop before the end of the air strip -- are greater hazards in the U.S., large parts of Europe and other developed regions, safety experts say. The cause is straightforward: increasing traffic and congestion at airports, often compounded by poor visibility and miscommunications between pilots and air-traffic controllers. For the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2007, the FAA reported 24 serious near-collisions at airports in the U.S., only slightly down from 31 the year before and largely unchanged since 2003, though the administration says the trend shows fewer incidents involving commercial aircraft, For the first nine months of the current fiscal year, the agency counts 19 serious ground incidents. Bob Smith, Honeywell Aerospace's vice president of advanced technology, estimates that runway near-misses in the U.S., including less dangerous incidents, occur once a day on average. These "runway incursions" -- when through some mistake, two planes are in some danger of colliding -- have proved resistant to safety campaigns in the industry, although there are many more near misses than actual accidents. Between 1996 and 2007, Honeywell's data indicate incursions caused seven accidents and 269 fatalities around the world. One, a 2001 collision in foggy conditions between two planes on the ground at the Milan airport in Italy, killed 122 people. But running off the ends of runways occurs more frequently, by some measures accounting for roughly a third of all major commercial airline crashes world-wide. In the same 11-year period, Mr. Smith says, Honeywell counts 220 accidents and 459 fatalities from so-called excursions, with an average of 15 such events annually. In July 2007, a TAM Linhas Aereas Airbus A320 zoomed off a wet runway in São Paulo, Brazil, after landing fast and too far down the strip. It crossed a busy highway and smashed into a fuel depot. In all, 199 people died. ENLARGE
Companies are developing a host of technologies to combat precisely such errors. Airbus and Honeywell are working separately to create next-generation cockpit safeguards that will help pilots maintain stable descents just before touchdown, monitor their speed and trajectory, and even warn pilots to deploy the flaps, part of the wing that helps slow a plane when landing. There also are plans for warnings to tell pilots they are landing too far down the runway to stop safely, and to abort landings when short, wet or icy runways make it too dangerous to touch down. Airbus has been perfecting an automated braking technique to alert pilots to deploy reverse-thrusters, while the plane's computers would order adequate braking force to prevent running off the end of a landing strip. The goal is to highlight dangers "pilots might not have realized before deciding to touch down," says Claude Lelaie, the top safety official at Airbus. Airbus claims its proposed system would have given an Air France crew coming into Toronto during stormy weather in 2005 at least two warnings to pull up and abort a landing. Instead, the widebody plane landed one-third of the way down the 9,000-foot runway, crossed two roads and crashed into a ravine going 100 miles an hour. Two crew members and 10 passengers were seriously injured. "Now, everyone is putting a lot of effort to prevent runway excursions," says Airbus's Mr. Lelaie. Airbus hopes to have its runway overrun system on a test A380 super jumbo aircraft in October, and to have it certified on a number of models next year. Alaska, a unit of Alaska Air Group Inc.,
will be the first passenger airline to outfit its entire fleet with a customized version of the Honeywell runway warning system when it finishes installing the software this month on its 112 Boeing 737s. The system costs about $20,000 per plane and takes an hour to install. That's because it is a software upgrade to another Honeywell product, the so-called enhanced ground proximity warning system. That system provides pilots with a map-like cockpit display of nearby terrain, tall structures and the layouts of 10,000 airports world-wide, sounding an alert before the plane is expected to encounter an obstacle. The runway alerting system combines that information with the plane's navigation equipment to help pilots pinpoint their position on or near runways. Mr. Smith says the system at this point "doesn't tell you if there is another plane on the runway," but Honeywell and other companies are working on advanced cockpit-map displays to do just that. Sarah Dalton, Alaska's director of airspace and technology, says that since runway incursions are an industrywide safety problem, "here's a technology that's pretty simple and straightforward. Why not adopt it?" Alaska's pilots initially rebelled against the intrusiveness of the system, but the company reduced the number of alerts and dialed down the volume. Gary Beck, vice president of flight operations, says that for pilots "it's a little annoying at airports they're familiar with," but it's "one more safety layer." Write to Susan Carey at  and Andy Pasztor at