Document 6513008

Diary
11-13 March
15th Annual International Women
in Aviation Conference
Reno, Nevada, USA
Tel+1386 226 7966
gschultz@wiai.org
www.wiai.org
15-17 March
European Aviation Safety Seminar
Barcelona, Spain
Tel+1703 739 6700
anderson@flightsafety.org
www.flightsafety.org
Aviation Industry Suppliers
Conference
Los Angeles, California, USA
Tel+1310 203 9352
speednews@aol.com
www.speednews.com
15-19 March
HAI Heli-Expo
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Tel+1703 683 4646
marilyn.mckinnis@rotor.com
www.heliexpo.com
17 March
Crashworthiness of Aircraft for
High Velocity Impact Workshop
Filton, UK
+3531846688
info@devtec.ie
22-23 March
Conference on Quality in the
Space and Defence Industries
Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA
Tel+1254 776-3550
www.asdnet.org/cqsdi/
22-24 March
IPEC 2004
Toulouse, France
Tel +44 1628 604 311
sf@shephard.co.uk
www.shephard.co.uk
22-25 March
NDIA 2004 Interoperability and
Systems Integration
Denver, Colorado, USA
Tel+1703 247 2582
www.ndia.org
22-26 March
Annual International Operators
Conference
Anaheim, California, USA
Tel+1202 783 9369
www.nbaa.org
24-25 March
ERA 2004
Stuttgart, Germany
www.eraa.org
For a full list of events see
flight.international@rbi.co.uk
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SAFETY
How to reduce incursions
There are simple and inexpensive precautions that could be taken that would do away
with the vast majority of runway-incursion incidents ("Pilot mistakes blamed for most
runway incursions, Flight International, 17-23 February).
Certificated procedures call for the pilot not flying to report "before take-off checklist
complete". The result is that some crews tend to be carried away by checklists and systems and forget basic airmanship items such as a take-off clearance. Procedures could
be altered so as to require the pilot not flying to make a call-out reporting the clearance
status along with the checklist status, as follows:
• "Before take-off checklist complete - hold short of the runway"
or
• "Before take-off checklist complete - line up and wait"
or
• "Before take-off checklist complete - cleared for take-off"
Incidents such as the Milan Linate collision are not addressed by this method, but it
does restore pilot awareness of the take-off clearance and instills a habit of stating the
clearance status aloud before every take-off. In this way, situation awareness is
improved and incidences of pilots entering the runway without clearance could be
reduced considerably.
Alexander Maroudis
Athens, Greece
Danger signals
Use stop bars
The problem of runway incursion
would be greatly eased by full time
use of "traffic lights" or stop bars
with the addition of green/red
take-off or wait lights beside all
runway departure points. Most
holding points have a continuously illuminated red indicator
board, but these are always crossed
-1 hope with radio clearance.
UK airports operator BAA uses
stop bars full time, but most airports only use them in low visibility. Big airports have numerous
traffic lights for vehicular traffic, so
it wouldn't seem unreasonable to
install them for the vital task of
runway protection. The logic that
applies on roads, that a red light
will never be crossed, would reduce
complete reliance on the transmitted word, which is fraught with
potential error sources.
Dual language use and ambiguous terminology will probably
always be with us. It's easy to imagine that the controller said something he didn't, whereas a visual
signal can be referred to afterwards.
Misleading lighting almost begs
for a violation; green taxiway CL
lights leading on to a runway with
no clearance to enter are common,
often at airfields that have more
appropriate systems installed,
including stop bars.
Graham Smith
Salisbury, Wiltshire, UK
Most runway incursions could be
avoided if all runway/runway and
runway/taxiway intersections had
red light stop bars that must not be
crossed when lit.
In addition, why not have takeoff stop bars 150m (500ft) ahead of
each take-off position on the runways? When take-off clearance is
given, the take-off stop bar or bars
ahead of the departing aircraft
would be cleared by the tower controller. There would be an interlock
that would not allow the take-off
stop bar or bars to be cleared unless
all the intersection stop bars ahead
were on. As a departing aircraft
passes each take-off stop bar position, the bar is automatically turned
back on.
Ian Kirby
Ashford, Middlesex
4 8 2-8 MARCH 2004 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL
a major hub, not have a minimum
safe altitude warning system
installed at the time? The equipment is readily available.
Furthermore, a non-precision
approach should only be used if the
instrument landing system is unserviceable, so Kloten air traffic control
was the proximate cause of the accident rather than the pilots, since
runway 14 was useable. Was ATC
confused about the time because of
the noise curfew? The report poses
more questions than it answers.
Steven Stott
Thornton Heath, Surrey, UK
You reported that the aircraft systems called minimums just before
impact. It would seem likely that
the captain still had the 200ft (60m)
QFE minimums for the instrument
landing system still bugged instead
of the VOR minimums for the short
westerly runway. When thefirstofficer called minimums the captain
may have disregarded the call
becuse it did not tally with his
instruments. Presuming the comIt is regrettable that the investigators pany uses QNH minimums, the
into the crash of the Crossair Avro error would not have been immediRJ100 chose primarily to blame the aely apparent. If this is so, then the
crew (Flight International, 10-16 cause of the crash is likjely to have
February). This gives the wrong been that the crew had set up an
impression. Pilot error was certainly approach for the southerly ILS, but
a contributory factor, as descent when they were diverted on to the
below minimum descent altitude westerly VOR, the captain did not
can lead to a controlled flight into reset his decision bugs.
Capt Ray Tibenham
terrain accident.
But why did the radar at Zurich, Northwich, Cheshire, UK
Other factors
at Zurich
www.fliqhtinternational.com