Report on the Issues of Runway Incursions and Management Challenges in Mitigating Them

Explain the issues of runway incursions and address some of the safety management challenges in mitigating these incursions

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At the airport, there are well-defined areas designated for landing and take-off of an aircraft which are protected areas. A runway incursion specified by an event at the airport involving the incorrect presence of an airplane vehicle or a person in the protected area (Krause, 2003). The aviation safety programs have a mutual goal which is to reduce the hazards, mitigate the risks or manage the risks in air transportation. Runway incursions have at times resulted in serious accidents with potential significant losses, and although they are not a new problem, with the notable increment in air traffic, runway incursions have been on the continuous rise. Some of the types of Runway incursions are: when a departing aircraft runway is in conflicts with ATC clearance, poor weather, pilot error, emergency, fault with the planes and town vehicle crossing at the runway when it is contrary to ATC clearance (Krause, 2003). With occurrence of the runway incursion, passenger safety is at risk especially if the aircraft is unable to divert from the incident.

Notable challenges for a reduction in runway incursions include:

Proper communication techniques and technology. One primary challenge is that many airport infrastructures are old; there are still old radar systems which may not be able to relay the accurate GPS, in turn, giving the ATC false location. Despite the ATC capability of directing the aircraft to the transmitted coordinates, there is still a better chance of a margin of error that if not well identified may compromise to the plane safety (Jones & Prinzel, 2006, October). However, when the ATC I able to use Multi-static Dependent Surveillance system that invented which uses not only the GPS but also multi-alteration will give the ATC a better real-time location for the aircraft.

Pilots still depend on traffic instructors to guide them on where to land. Human is to error and in the case where an individual makes an honest mistake example, forgetting to give appropriate directions, may cause an aircraft to collide with another especially in a busy airport. However, if an airport can use technology to visually light up the path that is to be utilized by the plans will not only make the work for the traffic instructors easier but also the pilots have an intend to fall on to in case there is an error realized in the landing or taking off.

Taxi routes have notably been a nightmare in busy airports. With the mix-up in the taxi routes, there is a probability of causing runway incursions (Jones, 2005, May). Therefore, it is important for the airport to ensure they use the technology to light up the different taxi routes by showing the paths, ensure the people working at the airport have the basic knowledge of the airport surface marking; there are adequate lights and signs to indicate the taxiway.

Busy airports have had to deal with closely spaced parallel runways that have to deal with complicated and confusing intersections, high-speed turnoff and crossing tracks (Jones, 2005, May). The probability of the congested airports it results to crew confusion, the distraction of the team and affecting pilot situational awareness is very possible. Therefore, it is necessary that the airport crews have a great understanding of the functioning of the airport and also o as to reduce the probability of human error the team needs to occasionally take breaks ad shifts so that the airport crew is constantly on alert. Moreover, in a congested aircraft with many different sized aircraft, it is important that the runways are properly marked so that there is less pilot confusion and ATC is always on alert and give the right GPS coordinates for landing and take-off and work within a comprehensive schedule.

References

Jones, D. R. (2005, May). Runway incursion prevention system testing at the Wallops Flight Facility. In Defense and Security (pp. 47-58). International Society for Optics and Photonics.

Jones, D. R., & Prinzel, L. J. (2006, October). Runway incursion prevention for general aviation operations. In 25th Digital Avionics Systems Conference, 2006 IEEE/AIAA (pp. 1-12). IEEE.

Krause, S. (2003). Aircraft safety: accident investigations, analyses, & applications. McGraw Hill Professional.