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Scary Skies in Southern Cal -- 3 Airports in L.A. Area Have Nation's Worst Runway Safety Records

Posted on: Saturday, 26 November 2005, 12:00 CST

By Ian Gregor Associated Press / Mark Watson contributed

LOS ANGELES - It's not a record you want to brag about: Los Angeles International Airport and two others nearby have the worst runway safety records recently among the nation's busiest airports, a review of federal aviation data shows.

Federal officials are most concerned by the situation at bustling LAX, where commercial jets have come perilously close to crashing at least twice since 1999, the first year of data reviewed by the Associated Press. The problem persists because, despite millions spent to reduce violations known as runway incursions, LAX's airfield has built-in flaws: It's too tightly packed and arrivals must cross runways used for takeoffs.

Runway incursions occur when a plane or vehicle on the ground gets too close to a plane that is landing or taking off.

LAX, the nation's fourth-busiest airport in terms of flights, has two sets of parallel runways. Planes land on the outer runways and, while taxiing to their gates, cross the inner runways, which are used for takeoffs.

Southern California has long been the nation's runway incursion epicenter. Among the country's 25 busiest commercial airports, John Wayne Airport in Orange County, Long Beach Airport and LAX ranked one, two and three in incursion rates - measured by incidents per 100,000 flights - since 1999. The three airports also topped the list for the total number of incidents, regardless of size.

Nationwide, the number of incursions has dropped about 20 percent from its 2001 peak. Airports in Boston, Philadelphia and Newark had unusually high numbers of incursions in fiscal year 2005; those in Denver, San Francisco and New York's La Guardia had none, according to federal records.

Incursions spiked at 407 in fiscal 2001, FAA reports show, before dropping to 326 in fiscal 2004. Boston's Logan International bucked the trend in spectacular fashion by recording 15 incursions in the 2005 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, after experiencing just four from 2002 through 2004.

Still, federal attention has focused on LAX because the incursion rate has remained consistently high - even though officials say interim fixes have reduced the severity of the incidents, if not the number.

"I don't feel there's an enormous safety problem there right now (but) the numbers do concern us," said Dave Kurner, the Federal Aviation Administration's regional runway safety program manager.

Spokeswomen at Long Beach and John Wayne airports said most runway incursions at their facilities involved small, private planes. LAX, however, mostly serves commercial aircraft, giving it the greatest potential for a catastrophic accident.

Aviation officials call the geographic clustering a coincidence.

"There's no common theme or thread, nothing unique to Southern California," said FAA spokesman Donn Walker.

The worst aviation accident in history occurred on a runway in 1977, when two jumbo jets collided at the airport in Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 582 people. At LAX, 35 people died in 1991 when an air traffic controller cleared a jet to land on the same runway where she had positioned a commuter plane for takeoff.

Now, after years of planning, LAX plans a permanent fix: a $250 million airfield renovation that officials say should eliminate most of the violations.

Authorities have tried to address LAX's problem by installing new technology in the control tower, and placing "hot spot" warning signs on the LAX charts pilots use. Additionally, LAX has spent $8 million on better airfield signs, lighting and markings, said spokesman Paul Haney. And, next year, the airport is scheduled to get a new ground radar system that will give air traffic controllers precise information about the locations of planes on the airfield.

A major airfield rejiggering should also give air traffic controllers greater control over the planes they guide. The project faces environmental lawsuits, but the airport hopes to settle those and begin construction early next year.

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Regional incursions

Number of runway incursions for Memphis, Atlanta, Birmingham, Charlotte, N.C., Nashville and New Orleans in fiscal years 2004 and 2005, which end on Sept. 30:

Memphis: 4 in 2004, 1 in 2005.

Atlanta (Hartsfield, plus Fulton and Peachtree counties): 11 in 2004, 12 in 2005.

Birmingham: 0 in 2004, 1 in 2005.

Charlotte, N.C.: 1 in 2004, 4 in 2005.

Nashville: 3 in 2004, 0 in 2005.

Source: Federal Aviation Administration.

- Mark Watson

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Source: Commercial Appeal, The

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