Pilots group calls for runway extensions to boost airport safety

[keesje]

An international pilots group said Friday that the crash of an Airbus jet at the international airport in Honduras demonstrated the urgent need for longer safety strips at the end of runways to prevent routine overruns from turning into tragedies.

Five people died and 65 were injured on May 30 when the A320 belonging to Grupo Taca skidded off the end of the runway at Toncontin International Airport.

The cause of the accident is still being investigated, but the London-based International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations said it «deplores the fact that it remains possible for an airport serving a major city to be noncompliant with internationally agreed minimum standards for runway end safety areas.


I share the feeling additional free space of the end of runways could have limited damage / fatalities in recent years. Southwest, Air France, Taca, TAM come to mind. Not digging / building things at the end of runways for a few hundreds meters more doesn't sound like a bad idea.

http://www.cp.org/uploads/poy/YN8.jpg

[slam525i]

First of all, I'm not an airline pilot, so please excuse my ignorance. The biggest thing I've flown is a 172.

Can someone explain to me the benefit of having, say, a 9,000 foot runway with 1000 foot runoffs on each side, versus a 11,000 foot runway with no run-offs? (Provided the runoff isn't made of engineered arrestor materials and the aircraft isn't close to limits for a 9000 foot runway.)

And in the case of AF358, it exited the runway at 150 km/h (http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/436518). What's a typical stopping distance on a wet runway for an A340 at 80 knots?

[Blip]

slam525i No need to apologise because that is a fair question.

For example in Sydney, Australia they have spent some many millions of $$$ extending a 4000 metre runway with 90 safety areas at each end! Woopee!

They want to do the same with the crossing runway which is still some 2500 metres long except that it ends at the edge of a river. So rather than declaring that runway 90 metres shorter at each end and declaring those areas the safety run-off area, they want to spend hundreds of millions of $$$ to build a suspended concrete platform over the sloping river bank.

OK I can see the benefits if the runway ends are soft like a gravel trap with a thin crusty sealed surface that the aircraft would break through if it rolled across the surface, but I don't think simply adding an extra 90 metres to every runway out there is money well spent.

[Centaurus]

Experiments conducted over the years proved that a bed of gravel stopped a fast moving aircraft yet this idea never took on. I would have thought 200 metres length of specially bedded gravel at the end of each runway where stopping distance is critical due obstacles, would prove an excellent safety measure.

[gr8shandini]

Slam,

There's a couple of reasons that you might want to add runoff rather than runway. One is that you've got to be able to make a safe approach to the runway threshold. That might not be possible due to local obstacles.

And the other, more common reason is cost. A runoff area just needs to support the weight of an aircraft only in an emergency. Runways have to repeatedly withstand the shock load of hard landings and thus must be much thicker.

[speed787]

well if we r going to do anything in the UK then i think London CIty should be the 1st priority!:ok:

[slam525i]

I think cost issues are going to be paramount to any changes airport authorities decide (or are forced) to implement. Also, given that many airports are geographically restricted from adding additional length, is there a reason the problem couldn't being "solved" with paint?

Another question, if soft-arrestor materials are used in the runoff, what would happen if one were to roll into the runoff during take-off? I understand that it should not happen, but it does on occasion (http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=8XbINavHtiA). Will the wings generate enough lift to prevent the material from crushing and dragging the plane back down?

I'm also curious what the consequences of landing onto an arrestor materials runoff would be.

My fear is that ICAO will require soft run-offs on all runways, the airports shorten their runways to make room for the soft run-off, and then one day some poor sap catches a gust and lands onto it, turning an "on the numbers" short landing into sheared-off-gears landing.

(Again, I'm sorry if I'm being naive. 172s can land on 1000 feet of grass.)

[PicklePilot]

Maybe a talk about Flex/assumed/Derated should be discussed....the runways lengths are just fine...