a. What is the ICAO minimum?
ICAO upgraded the requirement for a 90m runway end safety area (RESA) from a recommendation to a requirement (in 1999). There is a further recommendation for a 240m RESA, but this is not yet a requirement. It will be when the country, that manufactures EMAS systems and flies jets into ridiculously short runways in blinding storms, has its way. The RESA shall be 90m long and twice the runway width.
b. What is/where can I locate the exact reference? (not having a copy of Doc 9197)
ICAO Annex 14 – or for Australia, MOS139, section 6.2.25.
c. How is it linked to the aircraft type and runway length?
ICAO say
:
A runway end safety area shall be provided at each end of a runway strip where:
— the code number is 3 or 4; [this is the aircraft code – typical 3 is a B737, 4 is a B747]
— the code number is 1 or 2 and the runway is an instrument one.
The Australians (and possibly others) are less stringent and link upgrades partly to international flights.
MOS 6.2.25.2 The new RESA standard shall apply to all new runways and existing runways when it is lengthened. Operators of existing code 4 runways used by air transport jet aeroplanes conducting international operations must make provision to comply with the new RESA standards within five years of the promulgation of CASR Part 139.
d. Does ICAO itself specify any alternate means of compliance such as EMAS? i.e. short of reducing declared distances (TODA/ASDA/TORA etc)
Not in Annex 14, yet. Well gosh and shucks it sure enough will come one day. ICAO say in Attachment A-8 to Annex 14:
9.2 Where provision of a runway end safety area may involve encroachment in areas where it would be particularly prohibitive to implement, and the appropriate authority considers a runway end safety area essential, consideration may have to be given to reducing some of the declared distances.
RESAs have impacted on airports across the world, and the responses depend on circumstances. At some airports, there was sufficient land at the runway end so the RESA could easily be constructed. I'm presently building RESAs at a number of such airports in Africa, along with general runway upgrades. At other airports, the runway declared distances (not the physical runway itself) are reduced in a paper exercise to provide for the RESA. I've done this at other airports where there is no land available for extension. Umm, and those who have looked at EMAS systems have come away shaking their heads in unhappiness. Lovely to see, lousy to own.