Safer Airport Runways

Reported February 2007

McLean, Va. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- Many frequent flyers are familiar with taxi and take-off waits on airport runways. The wait is frustrating for passengers, but pilots need to pay extra attention while near or on a runway.

In August 2006, a pilot mistakenly used the wrong runway in Lexington, Ky., crashed and killed everyone on board but himself. The largest accident in history happened in 1977 when two planes collided on a runway, killing 583 people. A confusing, complex sea of lights, markings, signs and lines were some of the factors that lead to the crashes.

"Once you miss one runway sign, then you can easily find yourself taxiing onto a portion of the airport surface, where you aren't entirely sure that you should be at that time," Ron Stevens, a pilot with MITRE's Center for Advanced Aviation System Development in McLean, Va., tells Ivanhoe.

Now, human factors engineers have designed new surface markings to help safely guide pilots on runways.

"What we were trying to do is modify those markings to give some preview information to the pilot that you're beginning to approach a runway," MITRE Engineer Oscar Olmos tells Ivanhoe.

The new markings are a pattern of dashed lines on both sides of a center line located 150 feet before a plane reaches a runway. The line-pattern change gives pilots more warning of an upcoming runway and helps eliminate possible accidents.

Olmos says, "The biggest benefit is just runway safety, being sure that the pilots feel comfortable with where they're at on an airport and they're not inadvertently going onto the runway when they shouldn't be."

Pilots testing the new markings agree, the new markings help make runways safer. As a result, the FAA is requiring all major airports to implement the new markings by 2008. The new line-pattern designs will also help drivers of surface vehicles like baggage carts, fuel trucks, and maintenance carts, given that 20 percent of runway accidents between 1999 and 2002 involved these vehicles.

The Human Factors and Ergonomics Society contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Jennifer Shearman
Public Relations & Corporate Identity Manager
MITRE Corporation
(781) 271-3430
shearman@mitre.org

Human Factors and Ergonomics Society
Santa Monica, CA 90406
(310) 394-1811

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