Runway Close Calls No. 1 Air Travel Threat

NTSB Says Near Misses Are Biggest Threat To Travelers' Safety, Urges Quicker FAA Response

(CBS)  At a meeting in Washington today the National Transportation Safety Board said runway incursions are the greatest threat to aviation safety today.

There were 24 close calls at U.S. airports in 2007 that were serious enough to merit investigation by the NTSB. And 31 the year before that.

The agency says the fact that none of those incidents resulted in a crash is simply a matter of luck. And that if changes aren’t made, eventually that luck could run out, CBS News transportation and consumer safety correspondent Nancy Cordes reports.

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You can hear the panic in the controller’s voice in a new animation of a close call in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in July.

He says: “Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!”

The video animations were released today by the NTSB.

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Watch the simulated close-calls.

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“Three hundred and seven people dodged a bullet that day by 230 feet,” said NTSB board member Steven Chealander.

With busy controllers trying to keep track of more planes than ever before, the NTSB warned today that conditions are ripe for a runway accident.

It says the FAA isn’t moving fast enough to put a system in place that would automatically alert pilots when they’re on a collision course.

“It is time to do something before we have to investigate an accident that is catastrophic and explain to the families that technologies are out there to begin to prevent this thing from happening,” NTSB chairman Mark Rosenker said.

CBS News got a first-hand look at that technology, on a demonstration flight above the main airport in Syracuse, N.Y.

The pilot alerted Cordes when they were about two miles from the end of the runway.

As they came in for a landing, another demo plane strayed onto the runway. Radar detects the conflict, and a voice alert is sent to the plane. It said: “Runway occupied!”

And the one on the ground: “Converging traffic! Converging traffic!”

We abort the landing and go around.

How much time does it save?

“I would say at minimum five to 10 seconds and it could be as long as 30 seconds or more,” the pilot told Cordes.

Thirty seconds would have given the pilots in a near-miss in San Francisco shown on NTSB simulation video more breathing room. A Republic Airlines plane had to take off in a hurry to avoid a SkyWest jet that had been accidentally cleared to land.

Honeywell and Sensis Corporation, which developed the system, says it will take at least three years to implement.

This fall, the FAA began making quicker fixes - better runway markings at more than 200 airports.

“We've talked to the airlines on how they train their pilots, we've talked to our our air traffic controllers on how they operate their position,” said the FAA’s chief operating officer, Hank Krakowski. “We basically took a top-to-bottom look at everything we do around an airport.”

Still, the NTSB isn’t satisfied. It points out the deadliest accident in aviation history was a runway incursion, 30 years ago in Tenerife, Spain. Two 747s collided, killing nearly 600 people.

[alphaa10-2009]

This information was available for 14 months before NASA director Griffin decided to release it on the grounds of public benefit-- at least, that is the cover story.

However, NASA stalled FOI requests from the AP consistently, so it must have had a more compelling rationale than merely depressing "morale" of the traveling public.

After all, if protecting morale were so important, there is nothing more depressing than news of a jumbo jet collision. The logical step for NASA would have been to publicize the dangerous conditions, and join with others in pushing for greater air safety-- which is its mandate.

More than probably, Bush made it clear he does not want any more Katrina-style embarrassments from his appointees, Griffin included. It is worth remembering that Griffin''s predecessor O''Keefe had resigned in disgrace after the acute political embarassment of Columbia''s fiery reentry in 2003.

[tburzio]

The most dangerous part of an airplane trip is the car ride to and from the airport.

[tburzio]

Columbia was destroyed because of the EPA ban of certain chemicals used to make the foam hard. Here''s a good one for ya: What was the final reason why the tiles fell off the first couple of shuttles in a lightning bolt pattern? In an aircraft assembly building, the bathrooms are a long way, so the guys just relieve themselves on the sides of the airliner. On a regular painted airplane, this is no big deal. If you are trying to glue ceramic blocks to the side... :-) After they started washing the skin, the tiles stick now!

[howcould]

Ya know? ya ain''t no doctor, politician. Ya ain''t get de education fer it. So yaz ain''t gotta lie to me.. about anything. Yer not protecting anything. I already think low of you.

[jetranger7]

You all missed one hell of a Show, tonight on CNNs Glen Beck, Ohh God did he lay in to the Politicians and the President about our Border Situtation down on the Mexican Border, and all the Drug Crimes taking place down there. Even had several Sheriffs on the show telling how Badd the Federal Government has fouled up, and won''t help them down on the border ! Then it went on to say that apparently we have 70,000 Americans missing down in mexico for some reason,, it was a hell of a show !!should of seen it ,,,,

[idlepugilist]

I feel for TrueProphet. Truly plagued by imagined demons. Even liberals who detest Bush for his

[idlepugilist]

I feel for TrueProphet. Truly plagued by imagined demons. Even liberals who detest Bush for his lies or incompetencies don''t buy the conspiracy theory laid out for totalitarianism. What you''re spewing forth would result in a government overthrow by real Americans, whatever you imagine them to be.

[likeabllunch]

'' ... there was first aid on the trail, followed by inkblot sport and puzzle, followed by sell art basketball, followed by the evolved book rental shop: the yseedsberry, created to replace book rental with local information exchange, computerized bulletin boards gave way to the internet which made finding local solutions to local problems and local answers to local questions difficult, a community center dedicated to local people shopping for local bargains or jobs or homework help made a tolerable idea for a replacement ... enter ''rally round the sick beds'': and now the 300 county shopping malls are a collection of homes where the sick beds converge and the vendors around the sick beds cutting and pasting their blooms and other inventorys before hiking / bussing on to the next shopping mall / village ... ''

'' ... the few and proud run scream and citate and the job is dangerous; yet, they are 99.9999 plus percent less likely to be injured or killed as a result of disciplinary action than a small child ... ''

'' ... there should be wide arrays of input devices for playing with screen pixels ... perhaps user friendly impromptu local / task specific web browsers could be employed to facilitate the creation and maintenance of masses of web pages for individual sites utilizing gui toolboxes of object oriented routines and pan and zoom you-are-here maps and impromptu task specific ''jargon keycode'' character systems and other languages ... ''

[likeabllunch]

'' ... i met god, she speaks to me by meddling in the lives of others, and then tells me that there is infinite divergence and that i am as much a god as is she, and that neither of us has any real power over each other or anyone else and vice versa ... if i''m hurt against my will, she says, then it is not truly against my will: there is inadequacy / uncertainty / etc in my heart, i''m having a bad dream, she says ... ''

[trueprophet]

HOPE FOR AMERICA: PRESIDENT RON PAUL

-- No more meddling in other country''s political affairs
-- No more aggressive military actions overseas
-- No more pseudo-wars like the "War on Drugs"
-- No more IRS and unconstitutional income taxes
-- No more Federal Reserve (the group of private banks which owns our government)
-- No more U.N. (one world government) participation
-- No more NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO or GATT
-- No more North American Union
-- No more federal gun control laws
-- No more illegal aliens pouring-in over our country''s borders
-- No more illegal aliens allowed to roam freely in our streets
-- No more federal Laws which are not authorized by The Constitution
-- No more federal erosion of State sovereignty
-- No more all-powerful federal government

They don''t call him "Dr. No" for no reason. The Doctor is in! Join us in this 21st Century political revolution at ronpaul2008.com

[trueprophet]

With the full support of Senators Clinton, Obama and McCain, President Bush recently signed into Law the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, which, according to Senator Leahy (VT), will actually "encourage the President to declare Martial Law." It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of Laws that limits the President''s ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic Law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush has now undone those prohibitions. Public Law 109-364, or the John Warner Defense Authorization Act (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the President in a private ceremony, allows the President to declare a "public emergency," suspend Congress and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of your Governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder." President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act. In a sense, the two Laws compliment one another. One allows for torture and detention abroad of those who dissent and are stripped of their citizenship, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at home, preparing to order the military onto the streets of America. STOP THIS MADNESS! Vote for Ron Paul.

[trueprophet]

My fellow Americans just don''t seem to care that our nation, along with The Constitution upon which it was founded, is being flushed-down the NWO toilet by our nations'' bought and paid for politicians and media. While the Oligarchs warn and incite fear in the sheeple about the prospect of terrorism, they at the same time leave our border wide open, and fund and conduct illegal wars overseas that do nothing but incite the terrorism which their Orwellian Laws like the Patriot Act and the John Warner Defense Authorization Act pretend to protect us from. Wake up America! It''s not about protecting you from terrorism, or saving the planet from Global Warming, or any of that other fear-mongering garbage the sold-out, mainstream media feeds you 24/7. It''s about feeding the bankers and the military industrial complex, and facilitating the global elite''s ability to ratchet-down control over the American people, placing us into a total control grid where they can surveille, track and control everywhere we go and everything we do. It''s the groundwork for totalitarianism. It''s the New World Order plan of Bush, Clinton, Edwards, McCain, Giuliani, et.al., being executed quite beautifully. You''re a frog in a pot. In order to cook a frog, you don''t throw him into a pot of boiling water. If you do, he''ll resist and jump-out. What you do instead is, you turn the heat-up REAL SLOW, and by the time the water is boiling he won''t be able to jump out anymore, because it''s too late--he''s already doomed.

[kcuth]

True Prophet has got it wrong about the frog. Don''t know how many frogs he''s cooked lately but he will find that frogs have to be restrained to keep them from jumping out of a hot pot of liquid, slow temperature rise not withstanding. His angry argument that Americans are too complacent about the risk of losing our democracy is entirely valid,however. No conspiracy theory required...you may recall the attempted coup d''itat by corporate interests against Roosevelt in the 1930''s. Of course, sooner or later, Americans may wake-up and resist but that''s when they''ll get slammed by the iron lid of martial law. By then it will be too late to jump out of the pot. Don''t count on Americans being as smart as frogs.