LAX Honored for Drop in Runway Incidents

Officials said Friday that the number of runway incidents at Los Angeles International Airport dropped sharply in 2000, earning the airport praise from federal regulators.

Despite a recently reported 33% increase nationally in “runway incursions”--ground incidents that could interfere with departures or landings--the number of such events dropped at LAX from 12 in 1999 to eight last year, officials said.

LAX is the first airport on the West Coast to show such a decline, said Jerry Snyder, spokesman for the FAA. “It shows a great improvement and serious attention being paid to runway incursion issues,” he said.

Typically, runway incursions happen when an airplane taxiing toward a gate crosses prematurely into the path of a departing jet. An incursion may lead to a collision on the ground.

The number of such cases nationally has increased over the last few years, in part because of a 3% to 5% annual jump in air travel, Snyder said. As the world’s third-busiest airport, LAX had more than 779,000 takeoffs and landings in 2000.

In a letter to Los Angeles World Airports, the agency governing LAX, FAA Administrator Jane Garvey wrote that the airport’s improvement was the result of programs instituted over the last two years that include additional lighting, taxiway markings and signs.

The airport has budgeted $5 million for safety improvements. Posters outlining runway hot spots have been mounted in every airline crew room at the airport.

Airfield advisory bulletins, warning of potential problems on the runways, have been distributed to managers and pilots.

While these changes have been effective in the short term, the airport has proposed construction to further increase safety by lengthening one runway and increasing the distance between two sets of runways.