Word: faa
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Sources: FAA (plane), AP (coin), UNICEF (poverty), AP (disclosures...
...that the FAA hasn't been trying; the agency has been working on a new computer system designed to handle the increased traffic. Unfortunately, the system is now 10 years late (and counting) - and has not inspired a great deal of confidence in anyone familiar with NTSB safety concerns. One particularly alarming flaw in the new system involves the procedure by which air traffic controllers warn pilots when a plane is on a collision course with, say, a catering truck: By the time both vehicles show up on the system, reaction time has been cut to seconds. Not the ideal...
...hour as the highways leading to them. "The hard part isn't flying to Chicago, it's getting around on the ground," says a veteran airline pilot. "And the controllers are so rushed you don't ask for help." A big part of the problem is human error. The FAA says more than half of runway incursions are attributed to pilot mistakes. These include not following instructions, missing turns, even getting lost at an unfamiliar airport. An additional 25% of runway incursions result from controller miscues...
...FAA can take some small steps to make runways safer. Garvey says a regional airport manager told her to make sure the lights in airports were washed more frequently, and she intends to do that. The FAA has also installed bigger and brighter signs, embedded lights in the tarmac pavement and painted more lines on taxiways. And last week, as part of Garvey's new commitment to the issue, the FAA announced programs to provide refresher training for controllers and to encourage pilots to come forward to report runway incursions...
...best solutions may be the big-ticket improvements that have proved most elusive. The FAA continues to support a sophisticated ground-radar system that is $30 million over budget and years late. Closing poorly designed airports and restricting the number of flights per hour would probably prove effective--and expensive. It comes down, says Air Safety Week editor David Evans, to "the classic tension between economics and safety." In this trade-off, there's a lot to be said for safety. Just ask Bob and Elizabeth Dole...