Barb-SAN
07-15-2008, 06:01 PM
Saw this article today, and wondered what your thoughts are...:)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel/chi-runway-safety-lights_15jul15,0,273990.story
Traffic lights hardly seem like breakthrough technology, but a new plan to put red lights at the nation's busiest airports is a surprisingly high-tech solution to the top risk for the flying public: runway collisions....
Incidents in which planes came too close to one another have increased at U.S. airports, although the most serious category of such runway incursions reached an all-time low last year, totaling 24 out of about 61 million runway operations, said Robert Sturgell, acting administrator for the FAA....
A key goal behind the runway lights involves increasing pilots' awareness of the activity around them, especially at busy, congested airports, officials said. Most potential crashes on a runway are caused by a lack of "situational awareness," and pilot errors account for more than half of the incidents, according to a study this year by the U.S. Department of Transportation inspector general.
In addition to the runway lights, the FAA will seek proposals from aviation companies to produce "electronic flight bags" that consist of moving map displays and alert systems that provide pilots with precise guidance about the location of runway entrances and other traffic on the airfield, officials said.
The FAA is providing funding of up to $5 million for research leading to production of the new safety tools beginning in 2010, Sturgell said.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel/chi-runway-safety-lights_15jul15,0,273990.story
Traffic lights hardly seem like breakthrough technology, but a new plan to put red lights at the nation's busiest airports is a surprisingly high-tech solution to the top risk for the flying public: runway collisions....
Incidents in which planes came too close to one another have increased at U.S. airports, although the most serious category of such runway incursions reached an all-time low last year, totaling 24 out of about 61 million runway operations, said Robert Sturgell, acting administrator for the FAA....
A key goal behind the runway lights involves increasing pilots' awareness of the activity around them, especially at busy, congested airports, officials said. Most potential crashes on a runway are caused by a lack of "situational awareness," and pilot errors account for more than half of the incidents, according to a study this year by the U.S. Department of Transportation inspector general.
In addition to the runway lights, the FAA will seek proposals from aviation companies to produce "electronic flight bags" that consist of moving map displays and alert systems that provide pilots with precise guidance about the location of runway entrances and other traffic on the airfield, officials said.
The FAA is providing funding of up to $5 million for research leading to production of the new safety tools beginning in 2010, Sturgell said.