UK safety regulators are urging pilots and ground-vehicle operators to report immediately to air traffic control should they become lost during airport manoeuvring, as authorities seek to develop harmonised procedures for reducing runway incursions.
Adoption of a common procedure to handle lost pilots or drivers is part of a European initiative to cut the risk of incursions. Analysis has shown that 20% of such incidents involve air crew being reluctant to seek assistance and continuing with a potentially hazardous course of action even though they are unsure of their situation.
European efforts to develop a harmonised runway safety strategy were given added urgency by the fatal Milan Linate airport runway collision in October 2001, eventually blamed on air traffic controllers' failure to realise that an executive jet pilot had become lost while taxiing in the fog.
Representatives of the UK Civil Aviation Authority's Safety Regulation Group (SRG) have developed interim guidelines – which will stay in effect at least for the rest of this year – to deal with such occurrences as part of the drive to produce a common European procedure.
"Until the procedure is adopted as an international standard, interim guidance has been published that requires a pilot or vehicle driver who becomes uncertain of his or her position on the manoeuvring area to report immediately to the air traffic service unit," says the SRG. The guidelines instruct air traffic control to assume that the aircraft or vehicle in question is occupying a runway.
Airports with an aerodrome control service should not permit any further departures or arrivals until it can be positively established that the runway is not obstructed and the aircraft or vehicle is no longer a hazard. At airports with a flight information service or air/ground communication service, aircraft wishing to use the runway should be advised when it is believed to be obstructed.
DAVID KAMINSKI-MORROW/LONDON
Source: Flight International
