NTSB Chairman Calls Notams 'Garbage'

NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt called the Notam system in the U.S. “messed up” during a recent hearing on the July 7, 2017 incident at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) in which an Air Canada Airbus A320 nearly landed on a crowded taxiway. The crew mistook the taxiway as their cleared runway—28R—because Runway 28L was closed. The pilots failed to catch that note on page eight of the 27-page list of the SFO Notams.

After acknowledging the “crew didn’t comprehend the Notams,” Sumwalt read a complicated entry that limited a portion of a taxiway to aircraft with a wingspan of 214 feet or less. “Why is this even on there?” he asked. “That's what Notams are: they’re a bunch of garbage that no one pays any attention to,” adding that they’re often written in a language that only computer programmers would understand.

Sumwalt also relayed a recent experience he had flying the jumpseat into North Carolina’s Charlotte/Douglas International Airport, saying, “There were pages and pages and pages of Notams, including one for birds in the vicinity of the airport…when are there not birds in the vicinity of an airport?”

In his first hearing on an aviation accident as a board member and vice chairman, Bruce Landsberg agreed. “It seems like there is a greater interest in making sure that nothing, regardless of its importance, is left out, as opposed to making sure that critical items are highlighted,” he said. “Operating a lighter airplane, we get pages of irrelevant material. The important stuff gets buried.”

The former head of the AOPA Air Safety Institute, Landsberg added, “This is not a new problem. This has been going on for at least two decades.”

Not surprisingly, one of the NTSB’s six safety recommendations stemming from this incident is a “more effective presentation of flight operations information to optimize pilot review and retention of relevant information.”

Another of the recommendations to come from that accident was a directive for the FAA to require the installation of alert systems on all aircraft that would warn pilots flying into primary airports that their aircraft are not lined up with a runway surface or the intended runway.

After its investigation, the NTSB found that “flight safety would be enhanced if airplanes landing at primary airports within Class B and C airspace were equipped with a cockpit system that provided flight crews with positional awareness information that is independent of, and dissimilar from, the current instrument landing system backup capability for navigating to a runway.”

Landsberg had suggested a 12,500-pound threshold for the finding, saying he believed the finding was a “bit broad” to include light general aviation aircraft. “Do we have data to support it? I have not seen any.”

But that suggestion was withdrawn after facing objections from other board members. Jennifer Homendy, who also recently joined the board, pointed to FAA data that 85 percent of wrong-surface landings involve general aviation and noted a need for data supporting the 12,500-pound threshold.

Sumwalt added, “I do not believe that this agency should be concerned with a burden to the industry….Our concern should be what are the factors in the event.”