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FAA Says Many U.S. Airports Short On Safety

October 4, 2006

Airline Safety • American Cancels More Fights For Safety Checks • Key Lawmaker Wants FAA 'Housecleaning' • FAA To Review All Airline Maintenance Procedures • Southwest Grounds 41 Airplanes, Suspends Three Workers • Problems Found With Wing Bolts On Four U.S. Planes • TSA Adds Security Checks for Airport Employees • FAA Says Many U.S. Airports Short On Safety • New Device Finds Illegal Cellphones on Airplanes • Laptop Fires Worry Airline Safety Regulators • New System Reduces Risk of Runway Collision • Study Warns Cell Phones Could Cause Airliner Crash • Inspector General Hits Outsourced Airline Maintenance • Air Controllers Cite Close Calls In Los Angeles • Air Controllers Warn Equipment Glitch Affects Safety • Report Questions Airline Safety • Cell Phones on Planes - Survey Warns of Air Rage • Air Travel Still Risky, Pilots Warn • Airlines Outsourcing More Maintenance • Pilots Blast Airport Security

A pilot aborting a take off needs hundreds of feet of extra runway to safely do so, but at nearly half of U.S. airports, that extra 1,000 foot "safety zone" is missing, according to a Congressional report using data from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Even some of the nation's largest airports have at least one runway without a safety zone, the report warns.

The report was issued to highlight changes that are needed at many airports to bring runways into compliance with new safety rules that take effect in 2015.

The FAA says currently only 70 percent of runways used by commercial aircraft have a safety zone that is within 90 percent of the new requirement.

But more than half of the 573 U.S. airports that handle commercial traffic have at least one runway with the required safety zone, allowing pilots to safely stop the airplane on an aborted takeoff, or giving the craft a few precious extra feet in which to get airborne.

The recent crash of a Comair jetliner in Lexington, Kentucky points up the dangers of too little runway. The plane tried to take off on a runway that was too short and crashed, killing all but one on board.

Since 1983 there have been 45 fatal accidents resulting from airport runway overruns, according to Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), who authored the legislation setting the 2015 deadline for the safety zones.

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