S.F. Airport Listed as ‘Deficient’ by Pilots, Newspaper Reports

International pilots have listed 150 airports with major safety problems and singled out 15--including San Francisco--that they believe are “critically deficient,” the Sunday Times reported.

The newspaper said it received a leaked copy of a report compiled at an April meeting of the International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Assns. in Montreal.

The airport safety problems noted in the survey range from natural hazards to shortages of air traffic controllers to regulations that restrict pilots’ maneuverability.

“If airports and airspaces are listed, it means they have serious deficiencies, not that they are unsafe,” the Sunday Times quoted federation Executive Director Cathy Bill as saying. “There are potential dangers, but there are potential dangers when you get in any plane.”

Other airports in the critically deficient category were: Hong Kong; Wellington, New Zealand; Fornebu in Oslo; Suva in Fiji; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Leticia, Rio Negro and San Andres in Colombia; Maiquetia in Venezuela; Nauru, a central Pacific island; Lagos and Port Harcourt in Nigeria and Kabul in Afghanistan.

In San Francisco, the Sunday Times said, planes land in pairs on parallel runways, with pilots often relying largely on visual contact. “It’s been known for pilots to start aiming at the wrong runway and drift across in front of the other plane,” it quoted an unidentified pilot as saying.