National Transportation Safety Board
Washington, DC 20594
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 23, 2010
SB-10-09
NTSB CHAIRMAN HIGHLIGHTS RUNWAY SAFETY AND HUMAN FATIGUE IN
ADDRESS TO AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS
Washington, DC – In an address to the National Air Traffic
Controllers Association (NATCA) in Orlando today, NTSB
Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman lauded controllers for their
role in keeping the number of runway incursions low while
challenging the Federal Aviation Administration to hasten
the pace of its efforts to improve runway safety.
Attributing the decline in runway related incidents and
accidents in part to “robust procedures, safe designs, and
well-trained and alert controllers and pilots,” Hersman said
that “we still have a lot of work to do,” and that the FAA
needs to move more aggressively to lower the risk of runway
accidents.
Hersman chaired the NTSB’s February meeting in which runway
safety was again voted onto its Most Wanted List of Safety
Improvements where it has been since its inception in 1990.
The Safety Board’s recommendations to the FAA includes
providing immediate warnings of probable collisions and
incursions directly to flight crews in the cockpit;
requiring specific ATC clearance for each runway crossing;
requiring operators to install cockpit moving map displays
or an automatic system that alerts pilots when a takeoff is
attempted on a taxiway or a runway other than the one
intended; and requiring a landing distance assessment with
an adequate safety margin for every landing.
Citing an ongoing investigation of an incident in which a
767 landed on a taxiway in Atlanta in October, Hersman said
that the NTSB took a strong interest in the event “because
we want to know what led a professional flight crew to
mistake a taxiway for a runway, whether the controllers
could have detected the misaligned final approach to landing
and intervened, and whether there are technological tools
that can be used to prevent such incidents from ever
occurring in the first place.” Although no one was injured
in the incident, Hersman said that “if this event had
resulted in a fatal collision, there would be – far and wide
– immediate and understandable calls for changes.”
Hersman also cited human fatigue as an area that the Safety
Board has become particularly focused on, saying that “We
are seeing fatigue as a causal or contributing factor in
numerous accidents across all transportation modes.” The
NTSB has made recommendations to the FAA to set working hour
limits for flight crews, aviation mechanics, and air traffic
controllers, and has asked the FAA develop a fatigue
awareness and countermeasures training program for
controllers and those who schedule them for duty.
Recently, NATCA and the FAA established a working group to
collaboratively address the human fatigue issues that the
NTSB has identified. Hersman noted the significance of this
positive step by the leadership of both organizations and
called it a very encouraging development.
Concluding with an invitation for air traffic controllers to
participate in a three-day forum on pilot and controller
excellence that the NTSB will be holding in Washington in
May, Hersman emphasized the value of learning from the
numerous examples of superior job performance by
controllers. “Through our work we are very good at finding
out what went wrong, but frankly, it is just as important to
know what is going right, because we want to replicate that
throughout the entire national airspace system,” she said.
The complete text of Chairman Hersman’s speech may be
obtained on the Board’s website at
http://www.ntsb.gov/Speeches/hersman/daph100323.html
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