FAA chief cites hazard at LAX site

The acting chief of the Federal Aviation Administration said Monday that the two north runways at LAX need to be reconfigured to lessen the chances of collisions between aircraft on the ground.

“In general we’re happy with the way that the south airfield is going” at Los Angeles International Airport, said Bobby Sturgell, acting FAA administrator, referring to the current reworking of the runways on the facility’s south side. “We’d like to see something done on the north side. . . . I think the geometry is flawed and has to be fixed.”

Sturgell said -- as did his predecessor -- that the pair of runways on the north side are too close together and need to be separated further.

That has been a contentious issue in Westchester, where some residents say such a project -- if it involved moving the northernmost runway nearer to Westchester Parkway and Lincoln Boulevard -- would bring jet noise and pollution closer to their neighborhood.

The FAA has been increasingly critical of the airport in recent years, after a string of incidents on the ground there. Planes using the outer runway on LAX’s north side must cross the inner runway to reach the terminals, and that has resulted in a variety of so-called runway incursions, in which planes intrude on the paths of other aircraft, the most serious ones resulting in near collisions.

Sturgell said Monday that the most serious of runway and taxiway accidents on the ground at the nation’s airports have decreased in the last two years -- from 31 to 24, an all-time low.

LAX has had five serious incursions in the last five years. Only one of the five was considered the most serious type, in which pilots have to take extreme action to avoid a collision.

Sturgell said that moving the runways apart is not a guaranteed fix. “I think one of the things that people have to remember in this question is that no one thing will solve this issue,” he said. “We have to tackle this problem of runway safety from as many angles as possible. It includes things as simple as enhanced paint markings on the runway.”

Monday’s conference call with reporters was intended as an update on the FAA’s push to improve runway safety around the country. Both federal and airport officials want to see the north runways at LAX further separated, but that could cost $1 billion and result in the northernmost runway moving more than 300 feet closer to Westchester.

NASA’s Ames Research Center recently was contracted to study the north runway issue. That came after five other groups -- all affiliated with the airline industry -- concluded in their own studies or presentations that moving the northernmost runway was best.

Air traffic controllers released a report last month calling for the hiring of more controllers, which they said would do more to improve safety than moving the runways.

“Basically what they’re talking about doing is spending roughly a billion dollars to eliminate or reduce one incursion a year -- and one that is happening 8,000 feet down the runway and outside the collision zone,” said Mike Foote, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. of Los Angeles.

“From our standpoint, if they are willing to spend a billion dollars to do that, there are a lot of other things that you can do for a lot less money that would give you greater impact as far as safety is concerned,” he added.

The FAA and controllers have been at odds over staffing and pay for years. Last year, the FAA imposed a new contract on controllers, who are unhappy with salary and staffing issues.

FAA officials responded Monday to questions about a recent Associated Press report that found that NASA was withholding the results of a survey conducted several years ago with thousands of interviews with pilots about safety issues, including runway incidents. The AP, which had requested the survey results under the Freedom of Information Act, also reported that incursions and other safety incidents happen much more often than was reported by the federal government.

Sturgell and other FAA officials said that their agency had not seen the data and deferred comment to NASA. They did, however, say that the FAA had issues going back several years with the way NASA was collecting data from the survey results.

Under pressure from Congress, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said Monday he would review the situation to determine whether the information could be released.

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steve.hymon@latimes.com