Runway incursions – clear and constant danger

Abstract

Runway safety plays an important role in aviation industry. This paper deals with runway safety – runway incursion as a serious safety concern. Focusing attention on this issue is necessary due to many collisions with a significant loss of life and many aircraft damages. The first paragraph deals with general information about runway incursions with concentration on statistical overview of runway incidents. The second paragraph describes possible ways of mitigating processes that will lead to decreasing rate of incidents mainly at airports with confusing runway/taxiway orientation, such as Zurich Airport. It also emphasises importance of hot spots identification and subsequently their location at each airport. The last part of this paper deals with practical illustration of runway safety at mentioned Zurich Airport due to its confusing emplacement of runways and taxiways. Not less important are also positions of Action Plans and Action Teams at the point of solving problems related to runway incidents. Briefly, runway safety is an ongoing effort and we are committed to finding ways of making a safe system even safer. In addition to current runway safety initiatives, the following efforts will further the progress of increasing runway safety over the next several years.

Keywords

• runway incursions
• ATC clearance
• vehicle deviation
• pilot deviation
• hot spots