Runway Collisions a Growing Danger, NTSB Official Says

Airport runway mishaps are “one of the most significant hazards to aviation today,” and the potential for collisions--such as the one this month at Los Angeles International Airport--is likely to increase as airports become more congested, a top official with the National Transportation Safety Board said Monday.

NTSB official Matthew McCormick made his remarks during an all-day congressional hearing on the Feb. 1 crash, in which 34 people died after a USAir jet slammed into a SkyWest commuter plane. The accident occurred after an air traffic controller mistakenly guided the planes onto the same runway.

During 1990, 267 “runway incursions” occurred at 299 of the nation’s airports, including four at Los Angeles International, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. While only a small percentage resulted in accidents, near-misses occur every week, McCormick told members of the House Subcommittee on Government Activities and Transportation.

“The accidents that have occurred, and the numerous close encounters that we hear about two or three times every week, convince us that we are relying too heavily on perfect human performance and luck to ensure the safety of landing and departing traffic,” said McCormick, chief of the NTSB’s survival factors division.

McCormick was among more than a dozen witnesses--among them aviation consultants, flight attendants, pilots, FAA officials and passengers who survived the crash--to testify Monday. The hearing, held at the airport, was the beginning of an inquiry by the subcommittee into the Los Angeles crash and another runway collision in December in Detroit.

The hearing focused heavily on two issues: runway incursions and the ability of passengers to survive a crash.

The committee touched on a range of problems, among them the Los Angeles airport’s antiquated ground radar system, which was not working the night of the crash; a three-year delay in installing state-of-the-art ground radar nationwide; the heavy workload in air traffic control towers; flawed aircraft evacuation tests and the government’s failure to require that jetliners be retrofitted with the latest fire-retardant materials.

This was a crucial issue during the USAir-SkyWest crash. Although the 12 people on board the SkyWest plane died instantly, all USAir passengers and crew except the pilot survived the impact. Most of those who died were out of their seats and struggling to get out of the smoke-filled plane.

Passenger Dayle Zukor, an interior decorator from Los Angeles, described how her seat tore out of the floor during the crash. She became trapped underneath it, and said her 17-year-old son pulled her up while other passengers scrambled over her. She complained that the plane filled immediately with fire and smoke, and said the emergency exit over the wing was too small.

“At the wing you could really only get one person out at a time,” she said. “What was happening is you’d get two sets of shoulders at one small door, and so there were fights.”

At one point during the session, Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-Greenbrae), who chaired the hearing, grilled an official from the FAA about the aircraft evacuation tests, which require airlines to prove that their jets can be fully evacuated in 90 seconds with only half the emergency exits working.

During Boxer’s questioning, Joseph Del Balzo, executive director for system engineering for the FAA, conceded that the tests do not simulate real-life conditions, including smoke in the cabin and panic among passengers; that employees of the company that manufactures the aircraft frequently stand in as passengers, and that the tests can be repeated until the airplane passes.

“Your answers to these questions,” Boxer said, “are very disturbing.”

Boxer and other committee members also questioned Del Balzo about a $7.6-billion trust fund the government has set aside for airport improvements, such as a new ground radar system for Los Angeles International. Rather than being released to the FAA, the money has been tied up in Washington, where officials are using it to offset the federal deficit.

To Boxer’s surprise, Del Balzo said the FAA does not need the money. “I believe that the money that we have matches the amount that we can spend effectively,” he said.

McCormick, the NTSB official, testified that the Los Angeles crash might have been avoided had a good ground radar system been in place.

He said that unless the FAA makes such improvements, “the runway incursion hazard will continue to grow” as air traffic increases. Citing FAA statistics, McCormick said there were 64 million maneuvers during 1990 at airports with control towers, and said that that figure will increase to more than 80 million by 2000.

According to Del Balzo, plans for a new state-of-the-art ground radar system are three years behind schedule and the system will not be installed in Los Angeles until 1992. He said the FAA is doing all it can to speed its development.

As to whether the FAA needs to hire additional controllers, Del Balzo said he does not believe it is necessary. He testified that although there are 3,000 fewer air traffic controllers today than there were at the time of the 1981 controllers strike, additional controllers are not needed because technology has improved since then.

R. Steve Bell, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn., accused the FAA of relying too heavily on technology. He said hiring more controllers is the only way to prevent mishaps on the nation’s runways.

“What we need today are extra eyes in the tower cab in the form of assistant local controllers and supervisors,” Bell said. “There is no replacement for the skill and vigilance that a controller can provide.”