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| 3/30/2007 | Engineered Materials Arresting System (EMAS) | Background
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires that commercial airports, regulated under Part 139 safety rules, have a standard Runway Safety Area (RSA) where possible. At most commercial airports the RSA is 500 feet wide and extends 1000 feet beyond each end of the runway. The FAA has this requirement in the event that an aircraft overruns, undershoots, or veers off the side of the runway. The most dangerous of these incidents are overruns, but since many airports were built before the 1000-foot RSA length was adopted some 20 years ago, the area beyond the end of the runway is where many airports cannot achieve the full standard RSA. This is due to obstacles such as bodies of water, highways, railroads and populated areas or severe drop-off of terrain.
The FAA has a high-priority program to enhance safety by upgrading the RSAs at commercial airports and provide federal funding to support those upgrades. However, it still may not be practical for some airports to achieve the standard RSA. The FAA, knowing that it would be difficult to achieve a standard RSA at every airport, began conducting research in the 1990s to determine how to ensure maximum safety at airports where the full RSA cannot be obtained. Working in concert with the University of Dayton, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and the Engineered Arresting Systems Corporation (ESCO) of Logan Township, NJ, a new technology emerged to provide an added measure of safety. An Engineered Materials Arresting System (EMAS) uses materials of closely controlled strength and density placed at the end of a runway to stop or greatly slow an aircraft that overruns the runway. The best material found to date is a lightweight, crushable concrete. When an aircraft rolls into an EMAS arrestor bed, the tires of the aircraft sink into the lightweight concrete and the aircraft is decelerated by having to roll through the material.
Benefits of the EMAS Technology
The EMAS technology provides safety benefits in cases where land is not available, where it would be very expensive for the airport sponsor to buy the land off the end of the runway, or where it is otherwise not possible to have the standard 1,000-foot overrun. This technology is now in place at 18 airports with installation under contract at six additional airports. A standard EMAS installation extends 600 feet from the end of the runway. An EMAS arrestor bed can still be installed to help slow or stop an aircraft that overruns the runway, even if less than 600 feet of land is available.
Current FAA Initiatives
The Office of Airports prepared an RSA improvement plan for the runways at approximately 575 commercial airports in 2005. This plan allows the agency to track the progress and to direct federal funds for making all practicable improvements, including the use of EMAS technology.
Presently, the EMAS system developed by ESCO using crushable concrete is the only system that meets the FAA standard. However, FAA is conducting research through the Airport Cooperative Research Program (project number 07-03) that will examine alternatives to the existing approved system. The results of this effort are expected in 2009. More information on the project can be found at the Transportation Research Board website at http://www.trb.org/CRP/ACRP/ACRP.asp.
EMAS Arrestments To date, there have been four incidents where the technology has worked successfully to keep aircraft from overrunning the runway and in several cases has prevented injury to passengers and damage to the aircraft.
May 1999: A Saab 340 commuter aircraft overran the runway at JFK
May 2003: Gemini Cargo MD-11 was safely decelerated at JFK
January 2005: A Boeing 747 overran the runway at JFK
July 2006: Mystere Falcon 900 airplane ran off the runway at the Greenville Downtown Airport in South Carolina
EMAS Installations
Currently, EMAS is installed at 23 runway ends at 18 airports in the United Stated. With plans to install eight additional EMAS systems at six more U.S. airports.
Airport Location # of Systems Installation Date
JFK International Jamaica, NY 1 1996
Minneapolis St. Paul Minneapolis, MN 1 1999
Little Rock Little Rock, AR 2 2000/2003
Rochester International Rochester, NY 1 2001
Burbank Burbank, CA 1 2002
Baton Rouge Metropolitan Baton Rouge, LA 1 2002
Greater Binghamton Binghamton, NY 2 2002
Greenville Downtown Greensville, SC 1 2003
Barnstable Municipal Hyannis, MA 1 2003
Roanoke Regional Roanoke, VA 1 2004
Fort Lauderdale International Fort Lauderdale, FL 2 2004
Dutchess County Poughkeepsie, NY 1 2004
LaGuardia Flushing, NY 2 2005
Boston Logan Boston, MA 2 2005/2006
Laredo International Laredo, TX 1 2006
San Diego International San Diego, CA 1 2006
Teterboro Teterboro , NJ 1 2006
Chicago Midway Chicago, IL 1 2006
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| 3/29/2007 | Boom in aviation worsening safety in South America | Air travel in South America is growing more hazardous as a boom in commercial aviation far outstrips the capacity of the region's aging airports and traffic-control systems.
Brazil's Congohas airport, which serves South America's largest city, Sao Paulo, routinely closes when it rains because its main runway floods. Four commercial jets have slid off the runway while landing in the past year.
Brazil's military-run air-traffic system, already under intense scrutiny after a midair collision between a commercial airliner and an executive jet killed 154 people last September, has collapsed repeatedly as controllers limit the number of planes they'll handle. Thousands of flights have been delayed or canceled.
In neighboring Argentina, President Nestor Kirchner declared the country's air system "broken" on March 16 and said he'd shift responsibility for air-traffic control from military to civilian officials.
The statement came after dozens of pilots for the local airline Austral refused to fly, claiming that the country's only certified, long-range radar - at Ezeiza airport in the capital, Buenos Aires - hadn't been repaired since lightning hit it March 1.
Air force officials had insisted for a week that the radar was working, but pilots began receiving official notices March 19 warning them that flight controllers were guiding planes manually, without radar coverage. Currently, all air traffic in Argentina is under manual control, with planes flying 10 minutes apart and at different altitudes.
Enrique Pineyro, a former pilot who's been a leading critic of air-traffic safety in Argentina, said the lack of radar coverage had led to "many, many near misses," including an "extreme" near collision between a Bolivian airliner and a U.S. private plane where "the pilots got so close they could see each other's uniforms."
"They've been playing with people's lives since March 1," said Pineyro, whose popular documentary "Air Force, Incorporated," released last year, revealed major flaws in Argentina's air-traffic system. "I'll put it this way: I'm not flying in Argentina until this is fixed."
The high-profile controversies have drawn attention to problems that international pilots and air-traffic controllers said they'd long known about, problems that have worsened as the region's air space gets more crowded.
In January, the International Federation of Airline Pilots' Associations advised its 100,000 members to use caution while flying over Brazil. The group warned that controllers there failed to communicate flight plans or plan modifications to other controllers in the system and often were acting as if they had radar contact with planes in areas that radar doesn't cover.
That's prompted some foreign pilots to fly a few miles to the sides of their designated flight paths in Brazilian airspace, international experts said, just to make sure controllers haven't accidentally put them at the same altitudes and headings as another aircraft. The pilots report the change to the controllers. "Many are asking, `Is Latin America on the right trajectory?'" said William Voss, the president of the U.S.-based Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit group that monitors air safety worldwide. "In a place where you have extra growth in air traffic, you can't just use the same system. Additional oversight is needed, and it's not being done."
According to the foundation, Latin America's accident rate from 1996 to 2005 was three times higher than the world average and eight times higher than that of the United States.
South America is still much safer to fly through than the world's most dangerous regions: Africa, where there are 9.7 accidents that kill someone or destroy an airplane for every million takeoffs, and Asia (excluding China), where there are 6.7 such accidents per million takeoffs.
South America's safety record has improved over the past decade and a half, as have records around the world. In Brazil, for example, 0.6 percent of the country's air fleet was involved in an accident last year, compared with 2.5 percent in 1990.
But at 3.2 serious accidents per million takeoffs, the region lags way behind the safety records of the United States, China, Europe and Australia.
That statistic is more worrisome because South American air travel is among the world's fastest-growing, said Steve Brown, the senior vice president of operations for the U.S.-based National Business Aviation Association.
"Flying in South America is considered to be safe, but the recent accident in Brazil raised a lot of questions about how adequate the training of the controllers was and how reliable their equipment was," Brown said.
"The big concern is whether the (air traffic-control) system can handle future growth." The issue is a key one for many Latin American countries, which are raking in billions of dollars a year from international tourism. In Argentina, tourism generates more revenue than the country's famed beef industry.
Air travel has been booming over the past four years as the region experiences its first spell of sustained economic growth in a decade. A jump in international tourism and the rise of low-cost airlines have contributed to the boom.
Regional airlines are buying dozens more planes, and passenger numbers are rising by around 10 percent a year in several countries, including by 43 percent in Brazil from 2003 to 2006. Most of the growth has been in domestic travel, although the number of international flights also is increasing.
In Argentina, the number of Americans arriving through Ezezia, the main airport, jumped by 56 percent from 2003 to 2006, second only to Brazilian passengers. Meanwhile, critics say government regulators are falling behind in key areas of air safety. Many countries lack sufficient radar coverage and some, such as Bolivia and Argentina, have almost no radar coverage, even under normal conditions. Pilots and flight controllers say they regularly work with faulty radar screens, outdated software and inadequate runways.
Pineyro's film showed airplanes vanishing from Argentine controllers' screens for seconds at a time because of malfunctioning radar and software. "In this new trend, where profit has to the most important goal, the authorities are doing stupid things," Pineyro said. "They're not making the investments that they need to, and everyone's operating in a collapsed system."
Most governments haven't hired more flight controllers or bought new equipment to handle the growth, with notable exceptions such as Chile. Critics blame a lack of political will on the part of governments, widespread corruption and a shortage of resources.
Brazilian officials admit that they're not keeping up with the rising demand, but say air safety hasn't been jeopardized. "Our problem is the growth in air traffic has surpassed our capabilities," said air force Brig. Maj. Ramon Borges Cardoso, the vice director of Brazil's Department of Airspace Control. "It doesn't help to just buy new airplanes. We need to build more landing strips too."
Colombian officials said the rise of small air companies had contributed to a spate of crashes in their country, eight from 2002 to 2006, which is high for airspace that sees relatively little traffic. "These small companies don't have the same resources that the big airlines do, and the training isn't as good," said air force Maj. Alejandro Torres Cogollo, the chief of Colombia's accident investigations division. "We are having a lot of problems getting the system to the ideal point."
For passenger Rosalia Reis, who was stuck at Rio de Janeiro's international airport recently as delays hit hundreds of flights across Brazil, her country's air-traffic nightmare may only represent growing pains as passengers increase and the system adjusts. "We know there's something wrong here, and we can only pray that someone's doing something about it. If that happens, all this trouble will have paid off." So far, however, the region's problems have no end in sight, experts said.
Although Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva demanded this week to know the "period, day and hour" that air traffic would return to normal, he was blocking a congressional investigation into the problems. Similarly, the investigation into September's crash has stalled. In Argentina, flight controllers and pilots said the president's promises to rent radar to replace the one that was hit by lightning weren't enough. "The situation here is critical, and that's the reality," said Cesar Salas, the president of Argentina's flight-controllers association. "It's being sustained by the good will of the pilots and controllers, but not by the infrastructure." | |
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| 3/29/2007 | NTSB Celebrates 40 Year Anniversary | The NTSB opened its doors April 1, 1967. On that day, the Bureau of Safety was removed from the Civil Aeronautics Board and became the foundation for the new accident investigation agency. Since then, the NTSB has investigated about 130,000 aviation accidents and thousands of accidents in the other modes of transportation: highway, rail, marine and pipeline.
"I have often said that the NTSB is one of the best bargains in government," NTSB Chairman Mark V. Rosenker said. "With fewer than 400 employees, the Safety Board is responsible for investigating more than two thousand transportation accidents a year. In our 40 years, our independent investigations have played an important part in improving the safety of every mode of transportation. As a result of the efforts of the Safety Board and other government agencies, manufacturers, operators and stakeholders, the United States enjoys a safe transportation system that is the envy of the world."
The NTSB is an independent federal agency charged with investigating every civil aviation accident in the United States and major accidents in the other modes of transportation. It is not a regulatory agency; its major product is the safety recommendation, each of which represents a potential safety improvement. In its 40 years, the NTSB has issued some 12,600 safety recommendations, with an average acceptance rate of 82 percent.
The transportation system has seen many changes since the mid-1960s and experienced substantial growth. The safety of those systems also has increased dramatically, as two of the major modes illustrate.
Aviation safety has improved, in part, because investigations now feature digital flight recorders with many hundreds of parameters, where foil recorders 40 years ago provided only 5 parameters and had to be read out by hand. Equipment or operational problems can now be more readily and confidently identified. Turbine engines are so reliable that twin-engine aircraft are now allowed to fly for thousands of miles over open water. Computers have led to the development of extremely realistic flight simulators, allowing pilots to be trained to handle virtually any conceivable flight condition. Systems developed and installed on airliners - resulting at least in part from NTSB recommendations - have virtually eliminated mid-air collisions and controlled flight into terrain crashes in this country for aircraft so equipped.
If the air carrier accident rate were the same today as it was in 1965, the United States would average a fatal airliner accident every 10 days. Except for the terrorist attacks of 2001 - which were deliberate criminal acts - no year since 1990 has seen more than 4 fatal scheduled air carrier accidents in the United States. The annual number of general aviation crashes has dropped by two thirds in the last 40 years.
Highway safety has improved dramatically in that period of time as well. Although the number of highway fatalities has fallen only 17 percent in the last 35 years, the extremely large increase in miles driven has resulted in a drop in the fatality rate of about 70 percent. "We have made great strides in the last 40 years in improving highway safety through the broad acceptance of seat belts and realization that drunk driving cannot be tolerated by our society," Chairman Rosenker said, "but we still lose over 43,000 of our fellow citizens every year on the roadways and this must be stopped."
While acknowledging some long-term safety challenges the NTSB continues to address - like operator fatigue and railroad anti-collision systems - Rosenker applauded the work of those who have staffed the Safety Board over the decades. "I am confident that in the years to come the National Transportation Safety Board will continue to be at the forefront of identifying safety problems in the transportation system and recommending changes to eliminate them. I think our nation has been well-served by the career professionals who comprise the dedicated workforce of the NTSB. I congratulate them and all who have come before them over the last 40 years." | |
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| 3/27/2007 | New SMS standard for helicopters | KAHULUI, MAUI (KHNL) - The Federal Aviation Administration picks a local helicopter company for a study that could revolutionize the aviation industry. Sunshine Helicopters in Maui is the only Hawaii-based group, and the only helicopter tour company picked by the FAA. Sunshine helicopters fly around Maui up to 20 times a day. It's one of Hawaii's busiest helicopter tour companies. Recently, the FAA picked Sunshine to take part in a landmark program called "safety management system" or SMS. "The goal is for better safety risk assessment, thereby eliminating accidents," said Ross Scott, president of Sunshine Helicopters. SMS takes a scientific approach to aviation risk, assigning a numeric value to everyday operations. The goal is to "design out" causes of failure. "We're going to help set the standards that are going to improve safety throughout the industry," said Ken Kloppel, a pilot for Sunshine Helicopters. Sunshine is one of nine aviation companies involved in this new study. It could revolutionize aviation culture by taking a proactive approach to safety, instead of a reactive one. "This system says, 'Wait a minute. Maybe we can stop the accident before it happens,'" said Ross. As part of this safety-first approach, some of the helicopters even have advanced safety features. In lieu of a tail rotor, the EC130B-4 helicopter has a Fenstraun, which protects the tail rotor, making it safer on the ground and in the air. And as the helicopter circles high above Maui, participants can take in the view without too much concern about safety. Back on the ground, folks at Sunshine hope improved aviation standards will continue to attract customers. "We can provide a view of the vista like no other place and we want to do it to where they want to come back and do it again," said Kloppel. The FAA plans to roll out a new aviation standard by 2009. | |
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| 3/27/2007 | Aviation safety continued to improve in 2006 | Aviation safety continued to improve in 2006, according to statistics recently released by the NTSB. The number of accidents in all segments of civil aviation in 2006 was less than in 2005, with general aviation recording the lowest number of accidents in the 40 years of NTSB record keeping. However, GA accounted for the greatest number of civil aviation accidents and fatal accidents in 2006 ��� a total of 1,515 accidents, 303 of them fatal, resulting in 698 fatalities. GA averages 7.5 accidents for every 100,000 flight hours. Part of the decline in the number of GA accidents was due to a steady decrease in the amount of flight activity, according to NTSB officials. Since 1990, GA hours flown have dropped 20%. | |
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