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CNN Live At Daybreak
House Panel Examines Number of Close Calls on Airport Runways
Aired June 27, 2001 - 07:08 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: On Capitol Hill, a House panel has been looking into close calls on airport runways, and the number of them is rising.
CNN's Patty Davis is following this story live this morning, from Reagan National Airport, near Washington.
Good morning -- Patty.
PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, last year, the FAA says, there were 431 runway incursions. That's up 48 percent since 1997. That is despite the agency's best effort to reverse that troubling trend.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The runway at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, April 1, 1999.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop!
DAVIS: An air traffic controller tries to prevent a collision between two 747 jumbo jets after one mistakenly taxis onto an active runway.
A Korean Air 747, speeds toward takeoff, forced to lift off early and banks to the left to avoid a collision. The FAA says incursions, or close calls on runways, are on the rise nationwide, now averaging more than one a day. The FAA's answer, a software system called AMASS, or Airport Movement Area Safety System. It uses radar to alert controllers to potential collisions and has just gone on-line at San Francisco International Airport.
SCOTT SPEER, ASSISTANT AIR TRAFFIC MANAGER, SAN FRANCISCO: It's the first surface detection equipment that really gives an alert to the controller and allows the controller to prevent a collision.
DAVIS: Only San Francisco and Detroit have the technology so far. Thirty-two of the nation's biggest airports are next. But a federal transportation watchdog told a House panel AMASS is too little, too late.
REP. WILLIAM LIPINSKI (D), ILLINOIS: Mr. Mead, do you have confidence that the AMASS will work and that controllers will use the system?
KENNETH MEAD, INSPECTOR GENERAL, TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT: No.
DAVIS: Six years overdue and tens of millions of dollars over budget, the system has been plagued by false alerts. While the FAA is focusing on helping controllers prevent accidents, the Transportation Department's inspector general and the National Transportation Safety Board say more needs to be done to prevent pilot error, which accounts for 60 percent of runway incidents.
CAROL CARMODY, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION AND SAFETY BOARD: Unless much is done, more is done soon to prevent runway incursions, it's just a matter of time before we have a disastrous runway collision.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DAVIS: Even the FAA admits that this new AMASS system is not the entire answer. It says it is working on a number of fronts: not only AMASS, but it is working to train airport workers better not to get in the way of planes. Also some lighting and marking runways -- working to do that so the pilots can see exactly where they're going. The FAA has made this issue a top priority -- Carol.
LIN: Thank you very much, Patty Davis, reporting live from Reagan National Airport.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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