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There is a follow-up to the Chicago Midway Airport airplane accident waiting for you locally. As I fly into airports all over the country, I am struck by how many of them are surrounded by neighborhoods, hotels and business parks. Many of these airports were built in the rural suburbs. But now the cities have closed in. The Associated Press reported that at least 300 airports do not have the recommended 1,000-foot space at the end of a runway, a precaution put in place should an airplane overrun a landing or abort a takeoff, and there is not often room to build them. The Federal Aviation Administration said in August:

Since many airports were built before the 1,000-foot extension was adopted some 20 years ago, the area beyond the end of the runway is where many airports cannot achieve the full standard [Runway Safety Area]. This is due to obstacles such as bodies of water, highways, railroads and populated areas or severe drop-off of terrain.  

The AP says:

Nearly 300 U.S. commercial airports, including Chicago's Midway, lack the 1,000-foot margin at the end of the runway that the federal government considers adequate for safety.

 

Many are older airports squeezed next to dense city neighborhoods, bodies of water or steep drop-offs that don't have the available space.

 

Runway overruns can be extremely dangerous. In June 1999, an American Airlines jetliner slid past the end of the runway in Little Rock, Ark., killing 11 passengers and injuring 86. And it was only the remarkable speed of the passengers' evacuation -- less than two minutes -- that prevented serious injury or death when an Air France Airbus skidded off the runway in Toronto and burst into flames in August.

 

The Federal Aviation Administration in the 1990s began researching solutions to the runway barrier space problem and found that a certain light, crushable concrete will cause an airplane to decelerate quickly. The soft concrete bed, called EMAS for Engineered Material Arresting Systems, extends about 600 feet from the runway's end.

The FAA says 14 airports around the country have such EMAS systems. Four more are working on them. Hundreds more need them to comply with FAA recommendations.

 

Those completed systems, the number of systems installed and the dates they were completed are below, as reported by the FAA:

Airport	Location	# of Systems	Installation Date
JFK International	Jamaica, N.Y.	1	1996
Minneapolis-St. Paul International	Minneapolis, Minn.	1	1999
Little Rock National	Little Rock, Ark.	2	2000/2003
Greater Rochester International	Rochester, N.Y.	1	2001
Burbank	Burbank, Calif.	1	2002
Baton Rouge Metropolitan	Baton Rouge, La.	1	2002
Greater Binghamton	Binghamton, N.Y.	2	2002
Greenville Downtown	Greensville, S.C.	1	2003
Barnstable Municipal	Hyannis, Mass.	1	2003
Roanoke Regional	Roanoke, Va.	1	2004
Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International	Fort Lauderdale, Fla.	2	2004
Dutchess County	Wappingers Falls, N.Y.	1	2004
LaGuardia	Flushing, N.Y.	2	2005
Logan International	Boston, Mass.	1	2005

Additional Projects Currently Under Contract:

Location	# of Systems	Expected Installation Date
San Diego, Calif.	1	Spring 2006
Charleston, W.Va.	1	Summer 2006
Laredo, Texas	1	Spring 2006
Cordova, Texas	1	Summer 2006

 

This is a newsletter for airport executives, called "Centerlines." [PDF] It is published by a trade group, Airports Council International -- North America. Go to Page 28 for a quick story on how these EMAS systems work.

 

The AP explains that these EMAS systems could be a solution to landlocked airports that cannot get more space to build new runways: 

Planes that overrun a runway sink into the concrete, like a bit truck sinks into gravel on a runaway truck ramp on highways. [...]

In New York, the beds have stopped three dangerous overruns three times since May 1999 at John F. Kennedy International Airport, including a Boeing 747 in January, according to the FAA.

New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg sponsored an amendment to a House appropriations bill that would ensure that airports improve their RSAs. Last February, a corporate plane carrying 11 people ran off the end of his home state's Teterboro Airport runway during an aborted takeoff, sped across a busy road and hit a warehouse. Twenty people were injured.

This is a very thorough May 2003 National Transportation Safety Board briefing on the issue [PDF]. There is no doubt, the FAA said, that the EMAS systems have saved lives and could save more lives. The FAA says airports that have neither EMAS systems nor the 1,000-foot ramps at the end of runways should get on with installing the systems right away:

The safety benefit of EMAS was demonstrated on May 8, 1999, when American Eagle flight 4925, a Saab 340B, overran the departure end of runway 4R at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), Jamaica, N.Y. The airplane traveled approximately 248 feet across an EMAS before it came to a stop. Of the 30 people onboard the airplane, 29 were not injured and one sustained a serious injury during the evacuation. A safety board performance study estimated that, without the EMAS, the airplane would have entered Thurston Basin, a waterway approximately 600 feet beyond the end of the runway.

 

The board is also aware of several overrun accidents in which major damage to the aircraft and injuries to passengers might have been prevented or mitigated if an EMAS had been installed at the end of the runway where the accident occurred.

A recent example of such an accident occurred on March 21, 2000, in which a Saab 340B twin turboprop airplane, operating as American Eagle flight 3789, sustained substantial damage upon impact with a drainage ditch following a runway overrun during the landing roll on runway 01 at the Killeen Municipal Airport, Killeen, Texas.

 

The airplane came to rest in a ditch 150 feet beyond the departure end of runway 01 and aligned with the right edge of the 100-foot-wide runway. The 2.5-foot-deep ditch was aligned perpendicular to the runway. If an EMAS had been installed at the departure end of runway 01, it most likely would have stopped the accident airplane before it contacted the ditch, therefore preventing substantial damage to the airplane.

 

The safety board realizes that EMAS is not a substitute for, nor a safety equivalent to, a standard-size [Runway Safety Area]. However, because EMAS does provide an additional level of safety for those runways at which it is installed, the board supports the installation of EMASs at those runways in which the RSA is less than the minimum standards established in AC 150/5300-13. Therefore, the Safety Board believes that the FAA should require all 14 CFR Part 139 certificated airports to install EMASs in each RSA available for air carrier use that could not, with feasible improvements, be made to meet the minimum standards established by AC 150/5300-13, "Airport Design." The systems should be installed proactively, not only as part of other runway improvement projects.

The story here for all of you can be found by answering these questions:

• Does your local airport have the recommended 1,000-foot space at the end of runways, in case of a landing like we saw at Chicago Midway?

• If your airport does not have the space for such a ramp at the end of the runway, has it or will it soon install an EMAS? They work like runaway truck ramps on mountain passes. The FAA, as you will read below, recommended two years ago that hundreds of airports should install such systems. A bill that was recently passed into law is set to encourage more airports to build EMAS systems or extend their runway barriers. It requires them to do one or the other by 2015. According to the FAA, 284 such airports exist. (Here is an example. See section XI, item 13. The city of Laredo, Texas was awarded an FAA grant this year to build an EMAS ramp.)

Click here to see EMAS systems in Jamaica, N.Y.; Little Rock, Ark.; Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.; Rochester, N.Y.; Burbank, Calif.; Baton Rouge, La.; Binghampton, N.Y.; Greenville, S.C. and Hyannis, Mass. These systems are installed in places where there is not enough room to construct the 1,000-foot buffer at the end of a runway.

 

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Recycled Medical Devices

Hospitals are recycling tracheal tubes, catheter electrodes and other devices in order to save money -- and the federal government does not require the hospitals to tell the patients that they are using recycled medical devices. The Washington Post said that there are hospitals in all 50 states that re-process materials intended for one-time use.

 

The Post said Sunday:

A growing number of U.S. hospitals […] are saving money by reusing medical devices designated for one-time use, ignoring the warnings of manufacturers, which will not vouch for the safety of their reconditioned products.

Hospitals are not required to tell patients that reconditioned devices will be used in surgery -- surgeons themselves often do not know. The Food and Drug Administration regulates the practice, and many hospital administrators say reusing single-use devices is not only cost effective but also poses no threat to patients because the instruments are cleaned with such care that they are as good as new.

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Tookie Williams Execution

 

We still do not know what Gov. Schwarzenegger will decide about granting clemency to Stanley "Tookie" Williams, who is currently scheduled to be executed in California tomorrow. Williams was a co-founder of the Crips gang, but was later nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his books, written from death row, warning children about the gang life he led. In 2002, a story in the San Francisco Chronicle included this passage:

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Brault, the prosecution's lawyer in the (federal) appeal, said Williams was a poor candidate for leniency.

"Having spoken at length with all of the victims' family members, I think that Mr. Williams is just another murderer that deserves to be executed," she said. "There's been so many deaths at his hands or the hands of his followers that I don't think writing a few children's books erases that."

Here is some additional case background, and more coverage from the Chronicle.

"The many facets of Tookie Williams" (AP background story) 

• Dec. 7, 2005: Defense: Children Can Learn From 'Tookie' Williams
• Dec. 6, 2005: NAACP Asks Governor To Grant 'Tookie' Clemency
• Dec. 5, 2005: NBC4 Looks At Exhibits Used In 'Tookie' Williams Murder Trial
• Nov. 30, 2005: Justices Decline To Block Crips Founder's Execution
• Nov. 23, 2005: Governor To Consider Clemency Request For 'Tookie' Williams
• Nov. 21, 2005: Williams' Attorneys Request Clemency For Second Time

Here is a Web site dedicated to lobbying for Williams' clemency. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a friend-of-the-court brief on his behalf [PDF].

There are also some reports of "credible" predictions of civil unrest if Williams is executed. 

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