Safety Issues Get Upgraded as LAX Grows

A rise in near collisions at Los Angeles International Airport should be factored into the debate over the airport’s hotly contested $12-billion expansion, pilots and air traffic controllers say.

Until now, the issue of safety has been noticeably absent in hundreds of hours of debate over the 12,000-page plan--about five years and $65 million in the making.

LAX officials have been hesitant to argue for safety benefits in the expansion plan for fear it could send the wrong message about what they consider a safe airport. And expansion opponents argue the master plan isn’t about safety but about making the airlines and the airport richer.

But air traffic controllers and pilots brought the matter to the fore this month when they submitted letters in support of modernizing LAX. Controllers say that if the 40-year-old airport isn’t brought up to date, the number of near collisions will rise.

Indeed, from 1997 to 2000, LAX runways had the highest number of serious near collisions among the nation’s busiest airports, according to an FAA report obtained by The Times. And for the first five months of this year, the airport has logged almost twice as many near collisions as during the same period last year.

Controllers say they plan to keep raising the issue as the expansion plan makes its way to the city’s airport commission. The commission will review the master plan after officials answer comments received during an 180-day public response period, which ends July 25.

In a letter to the FAA and the city agency that runs the airport, controllers at the LAX tower say modernization is necessary to combat a persistent problem of near collisions. The configuration of the airfield often leads to safety problems, the letter said.

“The controllers of LAX tower understand there are many political problems and valid complaints with ‘expansion,’ ” wrote Michael D. Foote, president of Los Angeles tower’s chapter of the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn.

“Not modernizing this airport, however, is not an option. The airport must be made safe. History and statistics are against us if we don’t,” Foote wrote.

Runways aren’t the only safety hazard at LAX, pilots said, adding that crowded gates and alleyways where aircraft exit and enter terminal areas also compromise safety.

A new terminal proposed for the west end of the airport would help aircraft move around more easily and address other safety issues, said Jon Russell, a safety chairman for the Air Line Pilots Assn., in a letter written to Lydia H. Kennard, executive director of the city airport commission.

From January through May 21, LAX logged five “runway incursions,” or near collisions, up from three for the same period in 2000, said Jerry Snyder, public affairs officer for the FAA’s Western Pacific Region. The majority of these incidents are attributable to pilot or controller error, Snyder said.

Many of this year’s incidents occurred on a taxiway between two runways on the south side of the airport. To shield nearby neighborhoods from noise, departing flights leave from the airport’s two inside runways, while flights arrive on its two outside runways.

Near collisions often occur when pilots must move an airplane on a taxiway from the outer runway across the inner runway to the terminal. In several cases this year, pilots have rolled over what’s known as a hold bar, which signals where an airplane should stop on taxiways, and came close to the inside runway, where an aircraft was waiting to take off.

LAX officials have spent $5 million since 1999 to address near collisions, adding additional lighting to taxiways and runways, enlarging hold bars, adding signs and distributing posters showing problem spots to pilots.

These measures have helped, Foote said, but he added that the problem won’t diminish significantly until officials permanently change the airfield’s configuration--including moving the airfield’s two outside runways out a few hundred feet to allow for larger aircraft.

According to the master plan, after the runways are moved, parallel taxiways would be built between runways on the north and south side of the airport. Pilots could pause on these taxiways to receive instructions from controllers, making aircraft less likely to roll into a runway where jets are departing.

“We’ve tried to figure out why communication problems are taking place,” said Michael DiGirolamo, deputy executive director of airport operations at LAX. “In a lot of cases, it’s a time factor--they’re coming off runway so fast, they’re on top of the other runway. That’s why we want that additional taxiway as a buffer.”