ICAO: Runway Safety Training

ICAO will partner with ACI, IATA and CANSO on new runway safety training initiative.The new online course has been specifically designed for air traffic controllers and aeronautical information service staff. It will be available for enrolment in April of this year on the ICAO Global Aviation Training website. The course complements existing courses developed in cooperation with Airports Council International (ACI) for airport operations staff, and with IATA for flight crews.

A MILESTONE TO ENHANCE RUNWAY SAFETY: THE NEW GLOBAL REPORTING FORMAT

Runway excursion continues to cause serious deaths and economic losses in aviation. 179 people died in the accidents occurring between 2010 and 2019. The direct cost of accidents in 2019 is estimated at over $4 billion. A new method known as Global Reporting Format (GRF) is introduced after studies carried out by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to prevent aircraft accidents caused by runway excursion and to minimize risks associated with it. GRF is considered an important milestone to flight safety by ICAO. In this study, GRF is explained with all its components, and benefits and transition to the application process are discussed. As a result of the study, it is assessed that GRF is a positive contribution to flight safety in the process of take-off or landing by matching information about runway surface conditions obtained to the flight crews especially in adverse conditions.

Simulation Analyses of End-Around Taxiway Operations under Four Different Runway and Taxiway Choices

End-around taxiways (EAT) have been implemented at four major U.S. airports to increase the safety and throughput of parallel runway systems. This paper proposes two new runway and taxiway choices that become possible because of EATs. Instead of using the inboard runway to take off, the departing aircraft could use the outboard runway and use the EAT as the taxi-out path. A discrete-event stochastic simulation model simulates the operations of four different runway and taxiway choices. Two experiments compare the performance of the four choices on average taxi times, average fuel consumption per taxi, and number of runway crossings. In general, the results indicate that using the outboard runway to take off and the EAT as a taxi-out path would yield benefits in both taxi-in and taxi-out performance, as well as enhancing runway safety. Using the outboard runway to land and the EAT as a taxi-in path would yield benefit in taxi-out performance and runway safety at the expense of a longer taxi-in time. Concerns related to using the EAT as the taxi-out path, as well as potential future research topics, are discussed.

A Runway Safety System Based on Vertically Oriented Stereovision

In 2020, over 10,000 bird strikes were reported in the USA, with average repair costs exceeding $200 million annually, rising to $1.2 billion worldwide. These collisions of avifauna with airplanes pose a significant threat to human safety and wildlife. This article presents a system dedicated to monitoring the space over an airport and is used to localize and identify moving objects. The solution is a stereovision based real-time bird protection system, which uses IoT and distributed computing concepts together with advanced HMI to provide the setup’s flexibility and usability. To create a high degree of customization, a modified stereovision system with freely oriented optical axes is proposed. To provide a market tailored solution affordable for small and medium size airports, a user-driven design methodology is used. The mathematical model is implemented and optimized in MATLAB. The implemented system prototype is verified in a real environment. The quantitative validation of the system performance is carried out using fixed-wing drones with GPS recorders. The results obtained prove the system’s high efficiency for detection and size classification in real-time, as well as a high degree of localization certainty.

Artificial Neural Networks for Airport Runway Safety Systems

This paper presents the analysis of the existing approaches to ensuring the safety of aircraft`s takeoff and landing at airport runways using video surveillance systems. The subject area is formalized, and security threats and measures to prevent them are assessed. Optional architecture of the system designed for detection and classification of moving objects in the airport runway area is presented. The architecture is based on Neural Networks with AI elements. Also the original method of runway objects’ trajectory tracking is proposed. And finally, the research results of the applicability of the proposed architecture are presented.

Runway Veer-Off Risk Analysis: An International Airport Case Study

Runway excursions are the main risk for runway safety: operational protection areas mitigate the effects of events classified as veer-off, overrun, and undershoot. This paper presents a methodology for the quantitative risk assessment of runway veer-off in an international airport whose name will not be revealed for privacy reasons. The proposed methodology is based on similar principles adopted in other aviation risk analyses. The Real Level of Safety (RLS) related to the veer-off accident was calculated through the implementation of a retrospective analysis that permits to define a frequency model, a location model and a consequence model. Instead, Target Level of Safety (TLS) was defined through the risk matrix and acceptability criteria present in the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Safety Management Manual. Finally, the risk of veer-off accidents in the airport under evaluation was determined by using primary data provided by the airport management body. Risk values were calculated in more than 1300 points around the runway and they were used to assess the current level of safety. The authors present a risk map that allows identifying the areas in the strip with the highest risk of a veer-off accident. The obtained results demonstrate that the developed methodology represents a useful tool to define TLS and to assess whether infrastructural and operational modification need to obtain the required level of safety.

Improving Aviation Safety through Modeling Accident Risk Assessment of Runway

The exponential increase in aviation activity and air traffic in recent decades has raised several public health issues. One of the critical public health concerns is runway safety and the increasing demand for airports without accidents. In addition to threatening human lives, runway accidents are often associated with severe environmental and pollution consequences. In this study, a three-step approach is used for runway risk assessment considering probability, location, and consequences of accidents through advanced statistical methods. This study proposes novel models for the implementation of these three steps in Iran. Data on runway excursion accidents were collected from several countries with similar air accident rates. The proposed models empower engineers to advance an accurate assessment of the accident probability and safety assessment of airports. For in-service airports, it is possible to assess existing runways to remove obstacles close to runways if necessary. Also, the proposed models can be used for preliminary evaluations of developing existing airports and the construction of new runways.