U.S. airline regulators are moving too slowly to prevent runway near-collisions such as a Nov. 9 incident in which two planes came within 100 feet of each other in Florida, the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday.
The NTSB since 2000 has called for systems at 433 airports to warn pilots of potential collisions. The board voted Tuesday to keep the systems on its “most wanted” safety-improvements list.
The NTSB again called the Federal Aviation Administration response to the recommendation “unacceptable.”
“We’ve just been incredibly lucky that we’ve had observant crews that have been able to avoid these near misses,” board member Deborah Hersman said at a hearing in Washington.
The FAA recorded 324 cases of planes coming too close to each other or objects on runways, including 29 serious cases. A U.S. Airways jet about to land Nov. 9 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., pulled up and came within 100 feet of a Comair plane already on the runway, said Lauren Peduzzi, an NSB spokeswoman.
FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency is testing a system using runway lights to warn pilots when strips are occupied or unsafe.
