The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced it will invest millions into airports nationwide after a number of near-fatal collisions.
Multiple close-call collisions over the past year have been confirmed by the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in March that the nation’s airports were on track to have over 20 close calls for the year.
“Initial information suggests that more mistakes than usual are happening across the system, on runways, at gates while planes are pushing back, in control towers, and on flight decks,” Mr. Buttigieg said at an FAA safety summit earlier this year.
The resulting FAA Safety Summit in March gathered leaders from across the aviation sector, including the airlines, flight and ground crews, and air traffic control, to discover potential safety risks and what must be done to solve them.
The FAA said in an Aug. 23 press release that it will spend another $121 million to mitigate runway incursions and support airport infrastructure projects to “reconfigure taxiways that may cause confusion, install new lighting systems and provide more flexibility on the airfield.”
“The FAA is serious about ending runway incursions and we are putting substantial resources behind our efforts,” Associate Administrator for Airports, Shannetta Griffin, said in a statement.
“In some cases, the best way to address safety risks is modifying or reconfiguring existing airfields—these grants directly address those situations.”
A runway incursion is defined by the FAA as “any occurrence at an aerodrome involving the incorrect presence of an aircraft, vehicle or person on the protected area of a surface designated for the landing and take off of aircraft.”
The FAA will be introducing several runway safety technologies to provide pilots and air traffic controllers with improved situational awareness.
Fixes will include new runway status lights built into the pavements to alert pilots when it is too unsafe to land due to other traffic on or approaching the runway.
A brand new airport surveillance system using radar, multilateration, and satellite technology, called the Airport Surface Detection Equipment system, will be installed to allow controllers to track the surface movement of aircraft and vehicles.
The similar Airport Surface Surveillance Capability system is already located in 43 of the largest airports in the United States.
8 Airports to Receive Long-Awaited Safety Upgrades
At least eight airports, including Boston Logan International in Massachusetts, Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport in Alaska, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Willow Run Airport in Detroit, Michigan, Eugene F. Kranz Toledo Express Airport in Ohio, Richmond International Airport in Virginia, Jackson Hole Airport in Wyoming, and Naples Municipal Airport in Florida, will all receive upgrades.Boston Logan International Airport was awarded the highest amount and will use the $44.9 million grant to fund a new project that would simplify the airfield layout.
The airport in Boston will rebuild and repair taxiways “to maintain the structural integrity of the pavement and to minimize foreign object debris.”
US Air Traffic Controllers Understaffed and Overworked
Meanwhile, over the past decade, the number of fully trained controllers has fallen 10 percent, mainly due to fatigue among overworked staff, while airport traffic has increased 5 percent.The Department of Transportation’s inspector general report (pdf) from June found that the FAA lacked a plan to address staffing shortages.
The FAA has required many controllers to work six days a week due to a lack of trained personnel.
By the second half of 2023, some controllers had already clocked more than 400 hours of overtime, reported The New York Times.
The agency’s latest budget request (pdf) seeks $117 million to train controllers and hire 1,800 new ones, for the 2024 fiscal year, which begins in October.The FAA expects to lose more than 1,400 controllers next year, due to planned retirements and other reasons, plus new controllers must undergo years of training.
The COVID-19 pandemic slowed down the recruitment and training process for new air traffic controllers.The looming wave of retirements will only worsen the risk of human error among over-extended controllers at U.S. airports.
Rich Santa, the President of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, told CNN in June, that “the status quo is no longer sustainable” and that Congress must require the FAA to “immediately implement” new staffing standards and “conduct maximum hiring.”
Mr. Santa urged the FAA to immediately make changes “without the need for congressional intervention and Congress should not require further study of the issue.”
“We will always collaborate with anyone seriously willing to join us to solve a problem," an FAA spokesperson told The Epoch Times in response to Mr. Santa’s request.
