NBAA has established a new working group dedicated to runway and surface incidents to explore the recent incursions and other events. In testimony submitted to a Senate Commerce Committee hearing this week on “Addressing Close Calls To Improve Aviation Safety,” NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen said the runway and surface safety working group would bring together experts from across the industry.
“Although the business aviation community has built an impressive safety record, there have been some recent incidents that require thorough review and response,” he told the committee.
The move comes as several high-profile incidents have caught attention throughout the industry. FAA Deputy Administrator Kathryn Thomson told attendees of NBAA-BACE last month that the aviation industry had seen some “pretty serious close calls” this year, and while it hasn’t been an overall increase from last year, it “reminded us of how important the focus on safety is.”
This resulted in an all-hands-on-deck call to discuss a range of opportunities and challenges to bring greater awareness and leverage available resources in order to drive continuous improvement in safety.
One of the most recent events was an actual collision in October. The crew of the Raytheon Hawker 850 did not follow air traffic control instructions at Houston Hobby Airport and hit a Cessna Citation Mustang landing on a crossing runway.
In August, a Cessna Citation XLS ended up overflying a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 by about 100 feet at San Diego International Airport in California. Controllers had cleared the airliner to line up and wait on Runway 27 while also advising that the Citation traffic was on a five-mile final and cleared to land.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in August published a final report finding that, despite acknowledging ATC instructions to line up and wait, the flight crew of a Learjet 60 took off without clearance and caused a near-collision with a landing Embraer E190 in February.
In his testimony, Bolen noted wide support across the FAA, NTSB, National Air Traffic Controllers Association, and other stakeholder organizations to support an industry-wide focus on safety vigilance.
“General aviation has a strong role to play in shaping the future of aviation safety, in part because it is the proving ground for the industry,” Bolen said. “GA is where aviation was born, and it’s the point of entry for many in the community…We take this responsibility seriously.”
NBAA has been working to raise awareness and develop resources on the issue, he said. Additionally, the association is seeking to address runway excursions, he added.