FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt Thursday announced that serious runway incursions were down 50 percent for the most recent 12-month period compared with the previous year.
FAA logged 12 serious incursions in fiscal year 2009 which ended Sept. 30, with only two involving commercial carriers, compared with 25 such events in fiscal year 2008, with nine involving commercial carriers.
According to FAA's definition, a runway incursion occurs when something or someone intrudes on a runway without authorization. A serious incursion is one in which a collision was narrowly avoided, or there was a significant potential for collision that resulted in the need to take quick corrective action.
"The aviation community agreed two years ago at FAA's Runway Safety 'Call to Action' meeting to implement safety improvements at U.S. airports," said Babbitt. "Teamwork helped get us to where we are today. But while the 50 percent reduction is remarkable, there is still much work to be done to continue to reduce the potential risk."
FAA will host an international runway safety meeting Dec. 1-3 in Washington, D.C. The event, FAA's first international gathering of the runway safety community, will be co-sponsored by AAAE and MITRE Corp. For registration information, go to http://events.aaae.org/sites/091107/.
