Denver International Airport dodged a potential catastrophe on Friday when an arriving United Airlines jet employed emergency braking to avoid hitting a snowplow that had entered an active runway.
United Airlines Flight 1193 from Billings, Mont., to Denver, with two pilots, three flight attendants and 96 passengers aboard, had just landed on DIA’s Runway 26 at 5:38 p.m. when “one of the pilots noticed a snow plow on the runway,” the National Transportation Safety Board said Monday in a preliminary report on the incident.
“The crew used maximum braking power and full use of the thrust reversers to bring the aircraft to a complete stop,” NTSB said.
Initial reports indicated the plane missed the snowplow “by about 200 feet,” according to NTSB. But later on Monday, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Allen Kenitzer said ground radar data indicated the distance between plane and plow was 697 feet.
No one was injured.
Friday’s incident was the second “runway incursion” at DIA in a month. On Jan. 5 a small cargo plane mistakenly entered an active DIA runway when there was low visibility, thinking it was a taxiway. A Frontier Airlines jet was landing and had to abort to avoid hitting the small plane. No one was injured, and the incident is still under investigation.
Runway incursions are one of the NTSB’s greatest safety concerns.
Officials say that on Friday the snowplow was cleaning a road used by DIA firefighting and rescue trucks and inexplicably the plow driver crossed a taxiway onto the runway.
The United pilots saw the snowplow “holding short” at the road’s intersection with the runway, said NTSB lead investigator Arnold Scott, so they continued the landing procedure, only to see the plow then start to move across the runway.
Visibility at the time of the incident was good, “about 10 miles,” the agency said.
An initial report said the plow was being escorted by a DIA operations vehicle, but they “became separated.” Scott said there was no escort when the plow entered the runway.
Typically an airport employee in such a vehicle would be in contact by radio with air traffic controllers to help guide a plow driver’s movement.
The plow operator was not in radio contact with controllers, Scott said.
Officials would not say why the operations vehicle was not with the plow, operated by a DIA maintenance worker, when it entered the runway.
In a statement on Monday, DIA Aviation Manager Turner West said the airport had immediately instituted more training for snow-removal crews.
The airport will “look at other safety aspects relative to our airfield driver training program and airfield operations to see if there are ways that we can improve,” he said.
DIA is conducting an internal investigation of Friday’s incident and is working with NTSB and FAA investigators as well, West said.
Staff writer Jeffrey Leib can be reached at 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com.
