NTSB Faults FAA Runway Safety Effort
November 10, 2004 A near-collision between a Boeing 747 and another plane in August has prompted US safety investigators to classify as unacceptable aviation regulators' efforts to improve runway safety.
The five-member National Transportation Safety Board was angry the incident in Los Angeles was not immediately reported and not initially classified by the Federal Aviation Administration as an air traffic control error.
At a hearing on safety priorities, some board members also questioned the accuracy of recent agency claims of considerable progress in making runways safer with technological and educational advances and a self-monitoring system for reporting controller mistakes.
Members expressed impatience with FAA efforts to reduce runway near-misses. They voted to lower the board's rating of agency progress on the problem to unacceptable from acceptable with slow progress. The board also disclosed two other near-misses in Cincinnati and Baltimore recently but it was unclear if controllers were at fault.
An accurate accounting of errors is crucial for gauging the effectiveness of aviation safety programs, including those that measure runway near-misses.
"This highly visible incident was not reported," said Debbie Hersman, a safety board member, referring to the August near-collision. "It may suggest a deeper reporting problem."
To underscore its displeasure with the FAA, the safety board released air traffic tapes on the August 19 incident at Los Angeles Airport, which investigators said would have been disastrous had the weather not been perfect.
With Asiana Airlines Flight 204, a Boeing 747, bearing down on the airport, the control tower cleared Southwest Airlines Flight 440 for takeoff on the same runway.
Seconds later the big jet pulled out of its landing approach and screamed over the top of the Southwest Boeing 737 that was holding on the runway.
"That was close," said an unidentified voice on the air traffic recording as the Asiana jetliner roared off just 200 feet above the ground.
Safety board investigator Sandy Rowlett said an automatic FAA anti-collision warning system for controllers activated as designed but was too late to help. She also said the board heard about the incident from Southwest, not the FAA.
Laura Brown, an FAA spokeswoman, defended agency progress over the years and said major runway incidents involving commercial carriers do not go unaddressed. The FAA reported a handful in fiscal 2003 and 2004. "The board is looking for a silver bullet," Brown said, explaining the response has required a coordinated mix of technology and human performance to be effective.
