New Navigation Charts Ease Danger of Mid-Air Disasters

New, simplified navigational charts for the Los Angeles area designed to make it easier for private pilots to avoid airline and military planes and lessen the chance of another accident like the 1986 Aeromexico collision over Cerritos were announced Tuesday by federal officials.

While it was unable to cite specific figures, the Federal Aviation Adminstration said there was a “dramatic” decrease in near-misses over a three-month period a year ago during which 10,000 local general aviation pilots were invited to use and evaluate the new charts.

The officials said the biggest difference between these and existing charts, which they will supplement, is that the new charts show pilots where they can fly, while the old charts show them only where they cannot.

Barry Schiff, the veteran Trans World Airlines pilot and private pilot who thought up the new charts, said the idea came to him as he pondered the difference between the two worlds of aviation in which he flies.

Commercial airline pilots, he noted, usually fly under instrument flight rules, following the direct guidance of air traffic controllers, “who tell them where to go.”

General aviation pilots, on the other hand, often fly under visual flight rules, deciding for themselves where they should go, without any input from controllers.

Existing navigational charts simply indicate areas and altitudes to be avoided. Somewhat like topographical maps, they show major geographical features--such as mountains and bodies of water--along with airfields and major landmarks. Coded overlays indicate navigational beacons, radio frequencies and different types of restricted airspace to be avoided around major commercial airports and military installations, airfields and training areas.

The new charts show recommended routes for general aviation pilots to use while approaching or leaving 18 airfields available to them in the Los Angeles area, which has the most heavily traveled airspace in the world.

Much like road maps, the charts mark the recommended routes with arrows. The routes are easy to follow because they intersect major navigational beacons. The compass headings and maximum and minimum permissible altitudes are marked along each leg of the routes.

In addition to a separate new chart for each of the airfields, there is a chart showing recommended routes for general aviation pilots flying over the area.

Pilots who use the new charts would still be required to carry and consult conventional navigation charts.

Jeppesen Sanderson, the firm that developed the new charts in cooperation with Schiff, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Assn. (representing general aviation) and the FAA, said it will sell the 19-chart package for $24.95, with updates provided as needed every 16 weeks.

Carl Schellenberg, a deputy administrator for the FAA’s Western Region, said Tuesday that it’s “hard to say” whether the new charts might have prevented the August, 1986, crash in Cerritos that claimed 82 lives when an Aeromexico jetliner collided with a small private plane that had strayed into the restricted airspace surrounding Los Angeles International Airport.

However, Schellenberg did say that if the pilots of the two planes had access to the new charts, “they would have had a lot more to do business with.”