Midway incident highlights Island airport safety concern
CommunityAir Press Release, April 28, 2011:
On Tuesday, a Southwest Airlines plane slid off the end of a runway at Chicago’s Midway Airport Tuesday, stopping just short of a barrier separating the airport from the street.
According to local media reports, the aircraft came to rest in a muddy area to the left of the end of the runway, about 150 feet from a perimeter wall.
On December 8, 2005, in a similar incident at that airport, an aircraft skidded off the same runway onto a neighbouring street, killing a six-year old boy in a car. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has prepared a video of that incident: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B_f8XNThcA
Midway, hemmed in by residential and business streets, lacks the U.S. Government’s recommended 1,000-foot buffer zone at the end of its runways. Only 82 feet separated the end of the runway and the fence.
A similar incident occurredat Pearson on August 2, 2005, when an Air France jet overshot. In its report, Canada’s Transportation Safety Board recommended that the Department of Transport require all Code4 runways to have a 300m runway end safety area (RESA) or a means of stopping aircraft that provides an equivalent level of safety
[see www.bst-tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/aviation/2005/a05h0002/a05h0002_sec3.asp#a4
In an interviewon the release of that report, Transportation Safety Board chair Wendy Tadros said the process is “taking too long” seeing as how planes that overshoot runways represent one of the biggest problems facing the aviation industry:
“Somewhere in the world, about once a month, a large aircraft will run off the end of a runway in bad weather. It's a persistent problem.”
The Toronto Island Airport, used with increasing flight frequency by Porter, and, soon, Air Canada, presents the same safety challenge, although likely greater in scope, given the regular fog-prone conditions within and around Toronto’s harbour:
The one runway usable by Porter’s Q400 is substantially shorter than the recommended minimum for Q400 aircraft, according to its manufacturer. Porter has chosen to fly at less than full capacity in an effort to address this issue.
The runway end safety areas for that runway are only 91 metres in the east and only 85 metres in the west, and cannot be lengthened, in accord with the Tripartite agreement governing island airport operations.
If either of the Midway incidents –or the August 2, 2005 Pearson incident -had occurred at the Island Airport, the aircraft could have plunged into water deep enough to risk fatalities and serious injuries.
From late spring, through to early fall,a commercial plane overrunning the island airport’s runways could skip across the water to collide with one or more boats.
Given the evidence, a tragedy is, sadly,only a matter of time.
Which federal government agency or Department, or private airline carrier, will take responsibility when it occurs? Or will each blame the other?
On Tuesday, a Southwest Airlines plane slid off the end of a runway at Chicago’s Midway Airport Tuesday, stopping just short of a barrier separating the airport from the street.
According to local media reports, the aircraft came to rest in a muddy area to the left of the end of the runway, about 150 feet from a perimeter wall.
On December 8, 2005, in a similar incident at that airport, an aircraft skidded off the same runway onto a neighbouring street, killing a six-year old boy in a car. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has prepared a video of that incident: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B_f8XNThcA
Midway, hemmed in by residential and business streets, lacks the U.S. Government’s recommended 1,000-foot buffer zone at the end of its runways. Only 82 feet separated the end of the runway and the fence.
A similar incident occurredat Pearson on August 2, 2005, when an Air France jet overshot. In its report, Canada’s Transportation Safety Board recommended that the Department of Transport require all Code4 runways to have a 300m runway end safety area (RESA) or a means of stopping aircraft that provides an equivalent level of safety
[see www.bst-tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/aviation/2005/a05h0002/a05h0002_sec3.asp#a4
In an interviewon the release of that report, Transportation Safety Board chair Wendy Tadros said the process is “taking too long” seeing as how planes that overshoot runways represent one of the biggest problems facing the aviation industry:
“Somewhere in the world, about once a month, a large aircraft will run off the end of a runway in bad weather. It's a persistent problem.”
The Toronto Island Airport, used with increasing flight frequency by Porter, and, soon, Air Canada, presents the same safety challenge, although likely greater in scope, given the regular fog-prone conditions within and around Toronto’s harbour:
The one runway usable by Porter’s Q400 is substantially shorter than the recommended minimum for Q400 aircraft, according to its manufacturer. Porter has chosen to fly at less than full capacity in an effort to address this issue.
The runway end safety areas for that runway are only 91 metres in the east and only 85 metres in the west, and cannot be lengthened, in accord with the Tripartite agreement governing island airport operations.
If either of the Midway incidents –or the August 2, 2005 Pearson incident -had occurred at the Island Airport, the aircraft could have plunged into water deep enough to risk fatalities and serious injuries.
From late spring, through to early fall,a commercial plane overrunning the island airport’s runways could skip across the water to collide with one or more boats.
Given the evidence, a tragedy is, sadly,only a matter of time.
Which federal government agency or Department, or private airline carrier, will take responsibility when it occurs? Or will each blame the other?
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