Diary 11-13 March 15th Annual International Women in Aviation Conference Reno, Nevada, USA Tel+1386 226 7966 [email protected] www.wiai.org 15-17 March European Aviation Safety Seminar Barcelona, Spain Tel+1703 739 6700 [email protected] www.flightsafety.org Aviation Industry Suppliers Conference Los Angeles, California, USA Tel+1310 203 9352 [email protected] www.speednews.com 15-19 March HAI Heli-Expo Las Vegas, Nevada, USA Tel+1703 683 4646 [email protected] www.heliexpo.com 17 March Crashworthiness of Aircraft for High Velocity Impact Workshop Filton, UK +3531846688 [email protected] 22-23 March Conference on Quality in the Space and Defence Industries Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA Tel+1254 776-3550 www.asdnet.org/cqsdi/ 22-24 March IPEC 2004 Toulouse, France Tel +44 1628 604 311 [email protected] www.shephard.co.uk 22-25 March NDIA 2004 Interoperability and Systems Integration Denver, Colorado, USA Tel+1703 247 2582 www.ndia.org 22-26 March Annual International Operators Conference Anaheim, California, USA Tel+1202 783 9369 www.nbaa.org 24-25 March ERA 2004 Stuttgart, Germany www.eraa.org For a full list of events see [email protected] Flight International welcomes letters on any aspect of the aerospace industry. Please write to: The Editor, Flight International, Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS, UK. Or email [email protected] The opinions on this page do not necessarily represent those of the editor. Flight International cannot publish letters without name and address. Letters must be no more than 250 words in length. SAFETY How to reduce incursions There are simple and inexpensive precautions that could be taken that would do away with the vast majority of runway-incursion incidents ("Pilot mistakes blamed for most runway incursions, Flight International, 17-23 February). Certificated procedures call for the pilot not flying to report "before take-off checklist complete". The result is that some crews tend to be carried away by checklists and systems and forget basic airmanship items such as a take-off clearance. Procedures could be altered so as to require the pilot not flying to make a call-out reporting the clearance status along with the checklist status, as follows: • "Before take-off checklist complete - hold short of the runway" or • "Before take-off checklist complete - line up and wait" or • "Before take-off checklist complete - cleared for take-off" Incidents such as the Milan Linate collision are not addressed by this method, but it does restore pilot awareness of the take-off clearance and instills a habit of stating the clearance status aloud before every take-off. In this way, situation awareness is improved and incidences of pilots entering the runway without clearance could be reduced considerably. Alexander Maroudis Athens, Greece Danger signals Use stop bars The problem of runway incursion would be greatly eased by full time use of "traffic lights" or stop bars with the addition of green/red take-off or wait lights beside all runway departure points. Most holding points have a continuously illuminated red indicator board, but these are always crossed -1 hope with radio clearance. UK airports operator BAA uses stop bars full time, but most airports only use them in low visibility. Big airports have numerous traffic lights for vehicular traffic, so it wouldn't seem unreasonable to install them for the vital task of runway protection. The logic that applies on roads, that a red light will never be crossed, would reduce complete reliance on the transmitted word, which is fraught with potential error sources. Dual language use and ambiguous terminology will probably always be with us. It's easy to imagine that the controller said something he didn't, whereas a visual signal can be referred to afterwards. Misleading lighting almost begs for a violation; green taxiway CL lights leading on to a runway with no clearance to enter are common, often at airfields that have more appropriate systems installed, including stop bars. Graham Smith Salisbury, Wiltshire, UK Most runway incursions could be avoided if all runway/runway and runway/taxiway intersections had red light stop bars that must not be crossed when lit. In addition, why not have takeoff stop bars 150m (500ft) ahead of each take-off position on the runways? When take-off clearance is given, the take-off stop bar or bars ahead of the departing aircraft would be cleared by the tower controller. There would be an interlock that would not allow the take-off stop bar or bars to be cleared unless all the intersection stop bars ahead were on. As a departing aircraft passes each take-off stop bar position, the bar is automatically turned back on. Ian Kirby Ashford, Middlesex 4 8 2-8 MARCH 2004 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL a major hub, not have a minimum safe altitude warning system installed at the time? The equipment is readily available. Furthermore, a non-precision approach should only be used if the instrument landing system is unserviceable, so Kloten air traffic control was the proximate cause of the accident rather than the pilots, since runway 14 was useable. Was ATC confused about the time because of the noise curfew? The report poses more questions than it answers. Steven Stott Thornton Heath, Surrey, UK You reported that the aircraft systems called minimums just before impact. It would seem likely that the captain still had the 200ft (60m) QFE minimums for the instrument landing system still bugged instead of the VOR minimums for the short westerly runway. When thefirstofficer called minimums the captain may have disregarded the call becuse it did not tally with his instruments. Presuming the comIt is regrettable that the investigators pany uses QNH minimums, the into the crash of the Crossair Avro error would not have been immediRJ100 chose primarily to blame the aely apparent. If this is so, then the crew (Flight International, 10-16 cause of the crash is likjely to have February). This gives the wrong been that the crew had set up an impression. Pilot error was certainly approach for the southerly ILS, but a contributory factor, as descent when they were diverted on to the below minimum descent altitude westerly VOR, the captain did not can lead to a controlled flight into reset his decision bugs. Capt Ray Tibenham terrain accident. But why did the radar at Zurich, Northwich, Cheshire, UK Other factors at Zurich www.fliqhtinternational.com