Runway Close Calls: ‘Near Collisions’ On Runway Occur Nearly Once A Day

Runway close calls have increased over the past decade, and a new report shows that “near collisions” on runways across the U.S. happen almost once a day. According to AZ Central, reports show that since the number of flights have increased over the past ten years, so have the number of runway incidents, many occurring at some of the busiest airports in the United States such as Chicago’s O’Hare International, Los Angeles International Airport, and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International. While these near-misses don’t “hurt” anyone, they are serious, and could result in something more serious if air traffic control doesn’t stay on top of things.

“There were 341 reported runway incidents – known in the aviation industry as ‘runway incursions’ – involving at least one foreign or domestic commercial flight last year. In six of those incidents, a plane encountered a severe risk of a crash. In the rest, the incidents were less serious but deemed by federal officials to present a collision hazard,” reports AZ Central.

The runway close calls have been monitored at various airports, and despite security measures that are in place, accidents still happen. According to ABC 7, an investigation at Newark Liberty International Airport showed that a radar, called ASDE-X, that is used to warn of these situations doesn’t always work.

“At least 1,000 planes take off or land at Newark Airport daily, and an alarm will alert air traffic controllers when any planes are getting too close. We looked at six months of daily operation logs from the airport’s traffic control tower that we obtained that show the collision-prevention radar constantly false alerts. In one day last May, air traffic controllers recorded that the radar false alerted seven times.”

Runway close calls might happen more often than the average passenger knows about — and these incidents happen all over the world. And sometimes, planes actually collide. As previously reported by the Inquisitr, two Ryanair planes collided on a runway at Dublin Airport earlier this month. No injuries were reported, and passengers handled the incident well, but these are things that shouldn’t be happening, at least not frequently.

Ryanair released the following statement about the incident.

“Two of our aircraft were taxiing slowly to the runway at Dublin Airport this morning. The winglet of one aircraft appears to have scraped the tail of the other. Both aircraft were under the instruction of Dublin Airport Air Traffic Control at the time. There was no impact on customers on board and Ryanair contacted the IAA and worked with them to return both aircraft to stand. Affected customers disembarked, were provided with refreshment vouchers and boarded two replacement aircraft, which departed to Brussels Charleroi and Edinburgh later this morning. Ryanair apologises [sic] sincerely to customers for any inconvenience. Both aircraft are being repaired by Ryanair engineers and will be returned to service shortly.”

Do you think runway close calls should be more closely monitored to bring the number of near-misses down, or is this just something that is bound to happen because of crowded airports?

[Photo courtesy of Grant Wickes from Plano, TX (Dallas), USA, via Wikimedia Commons]