The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has awarded more than $121 million to airports around the nation to fund measures aimed at reducing the risk of runway incursions between airplanes. The projects to be funded by this investment will include reconfiguring taxiways that could cause confusion, installing new lighting systems and making airfield alterations to provide more flexibility of use.
The announcement came just a couple of days after The New York Times published an investigative article, which claimed that close calls between commercial airliners occur more frequently than the FAA publicly discloses. The outlet’s allegation was based on its own deep-dive analysis of the FAA’s internal records, as well as federal safety reports, and interviews with more than 50 current and former pilots, air traffic controllers and federal officials.
“The FAA is serious about ending runway incursions and we are putting substantial resources behind our efforts,” said Associate Administrator for Airports Shannetta Griffin, P.E. “In some cases, the best way to address safety risks is modifying or reconfiguring existing airfields - these grants directly address those situations.”
Following a “string of incidents” in early 2023, the FAA issued a Call to Action held a Safety Summit in March that brought together aviator sector leaders—including airlines, flight crews, airport ground crews and air traffic control—to determine the potential causes of these near misses and sources of such safety lapses, then propose actions needed to resolve them.
Steps the FAA has taken since then include forming an Independent Aviation Safety Review Team to further examine the ways the agency can enhance safety and reliability of operations within the nation’s air traffic system. Another of the initiatives saw the FAA invest more than $100 million to fund projects at a dozen different airports that should help avoid runway collisions. They included:
- Boston Logan International Airport: $44.9 million
- Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport: $39.8 million
- Willow Run Airport in Detroit: $12.8 million
- Richmond International Airport in Virginia: $5.6 million
- Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport: $5 million
- Eugene F. Kranz Toledo Express Airport: $4.6 million
- Naples International Airport in Florida: $3.5 million
- Jackson Hole Airport in Wyoming: $2.6 million
According to BTN, the FAA also announced this week that it would be hosting runway safety meetings at around 90 U.S. airports by the end of September.
In its announcement, the FAA also detailed several runway safety technologies it has introduced to help increase situational awareness among pilots and air traffic controllers.
- Runway Status Lights: In-pavement lights that alert pilots when entering a runway is unsafe due to other traffic that’s already on or is approaching the runway.
- Airport Surface Detection Equipment, Model X (ASDE-X): A surveillance system using radar, multilateration and satellite technology that allows air traffic controllers to track surface movement of aircraft and vehicles. This technology (or, alternatively its sister system, Airport Surface Surveillance Capability) is in place at the country’s 43 largest airports.
- ASDE-X Taxiway Arrival Prediction: Predicts when a pilot lines up to land on a taxiway, and provides a visual and audible alert to controllers.
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