Crowded runways lead to more near-misses

The aviation industry is expanding as never before, and many airports are experiencing an equally large number of near-collisions of planes on overcrowded runways.

The International Federation of Airline Pilots’ Association spokesman Gideon Ewers says, “Runway incursions are right at the top of our agenda. They are happening more and more frequently as air traffic increases and older airport designs struggle to cope. Of course most incursions pass without incident, but when they do occur the results are very bad indeed.”

When airports add runways to ease the bottlenecks of plane traffic, it creates more chance for two planes to collide, as taxi ways cross runways where other planes are landing and taking off.

Since a harsh wake-up call in the Canary Islands in 1977 where two fully loaded planes collided killing almost 600 people, systems have been implemented to avoid such tragedy again, but with the heavy 21st century traffic, fears a rising about the possibilities of collisions. The problem is a real one,  with two incursions a day being reported by European airports.