This was in the Sunday business Post today. Nice to see that the journo has used the words
'In a confidential document seen by this newspaper, Irish and international pilots have criticised Aer Rianta for its poor runway markings, lighting and signs beside the runway, particularly in the context of this summer's poor weather conditions', she never mentioned PPRune. Anyway here is the full story:
Dublin, Ireland, 18 August, 2002
An Aer Arann aircraft strayed onto a busy runway at Dublin airport forcing an incoming Ryanair 737 to take action to avoid a collision, The Sunday Business Post has learned.
The incident on August 5 has added to pilots' growing concern about the number of runway incursions, where aircraft taxi onto active runways without permission from air traffic controllers.
Pilots are blaming an increase in "near miss" incidents on poor runway markings at the airport, as well as a low standard of instructions from air traffic controllers.
The Irish Aviation Authority confirmed the runway incident, and described the one nautical mile distance between the two planes as "not ideal".
A spokeswoman said the incident had been logged by air traffic controllers through the mandatory occurrence reporting scheme, and had been investigated.
"Aer Arann had been instructed to `hold short', but wandered onto the runway. At that stage the air traffic controllers gave an order to Ryanair to `go around', which is to start climbing again," she said.
In a confidential document seen by this newspaper, Irish and international pilots have criticised Aer Rianta for its poor runway markings, lighting and signs beside the runway, particularly in the context of this summer's poor weather conditions.
The Irish Aviation Authority, which is responsible for airport safety, has not asked Aer Rianta to upgrade aspects of the runway, because the airport's markings are up to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) specifications, the spokeswoman said.
But pilots say the ICAO specifications are a minimum standard.
They point out that the aviation authorities at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris upgraded runway markings beyond ICAO guidelines, on the basis that they should be of higher quality.
"We have not received any complaints from pilots about runway markings, but any complaints of this nature would be followed up," the IAA spokeswoman said.
"We would invite pilots with concerns to make them known to us."
Pilots have also accused air traffic controllers of issuing unclear, hurried and confusing instructions for take-off and landing, using slang and colloquialisms, and of clearing descent into Dublin at varying altitudes.
The IAA spokeswoman responded: "Staff are consistently reminded about using the correct phrases and this will continue.
"Now that this has been brought to our attention, we will raise the question of the standard of phraseology through a consultative process with operators at the airport."