Originally Posted by anartificialhorizon
I am not talking about knocking down blocks of flats a mile from the runway as by this point any impact is likely to be disastrous, but ensuring there is nothing too hard to run into at close quarters to the runway................
simple really...........
One problem might be that there are often things around on airports which, if hit by an aircraft departing its runway, would not only cause the likely loss of the errant aircraft and passengers/crew, but would ALSO cause the loss of the passengers and crew aboard that SECOND AIRCRAFT. By which Im alluding to the relatively small separations between taxiways and runways; if one is to worry about overrun areas past any allowed stopway, one should also logically worry about departures off the side of the runway. If you start to impose restrictions forwards outside the accel-stop allowances, why not sideways?
As an example, when we are conducting Vmcg type testing, our lateral safety distance allowance usually means that the ground support personnel cannot park on the parallel taxiway because they are in the 'danger zone' - if we're worried about hitting a pickup truck, we certainly should worry about an airliner. Now, in theory, once Vmcg is known and speeds are scheduled accordingly, no-one should be going anywhere near the adjacent taxiway; but the same logic says you shouldn't be overrunning either ....