INCURSIONS KILL
Safety While Taxiing

Recently USA Today printed a photo of airplane rubble with a caption about two small airplanes colliding on a runway in Florida. The four people aboard died. Avoiding runway incursions is a matter of life and death.

A runway incursion is "any occurrence at an airport involving an aircraft, vehicle, person or object on the ground that creates a collision hazard or results in a loss of separation with an aircraft taking off, intending to take off, landing or intending to land."

General Aviation pilots are the most frequent runway incursion offenders. In Professional Pilot for March 2000, author Jay Chandler tells us that pilot deviations made up 61% of all the runway incursions between January and November of 1999. Of those runway incursions, general aviation pilots were responsible for the overwhelming majority, or 78% of all pilot runway incursions.

Besides not having frequent recurrent training like professional pilots, the way our brains processes information can subvert our safety as well.

Our brains have two types of memories, Short Term Memory (STM) and Long Term Memory (LTM) the a Processor for matching and retrieval. We remember what we see for only a second or two and what we hear for about ten to fifteen seconds. After that, the STM kicks the informa-tion into our LTM for storage.

When we are confronted with some new data, our brain uses its process-ing capacity to sort through what is already in our LTM. For instance, when you first learned what a tree was, it was a specific tree. Later, when you saw a different tree, your Processor could match the new information with stored data and match it close enough to recognize a different tree as a tree. This shortcut helps us function day to day with minimal conscious effort.

Our brain processors look for quick matches. This can be our enemy when we taxi on an airport. Airports are familiar, stored in our LTM and easily recognized by our processors. But airports are changing and becoming more sophisticated and busy. You will see more and improved signs at airports. Some runway hold bars are being outlined with black paint to make them more visible. At particularly dangerous intersections, you may find red signs painted on the taxiway pavement itself warning pilots of runway intersections.

At Milwaukee, this year, a Jetstream taxied onto the runway as a Boeing 727-200 was taking off. The 727 cleared the Jetstream by only 50 feet.

On a foggy and dark night last year, a Metrojet refused takeoff clearance. The Metrojet captain, listening to the uncertainty in the transmissions from a 757 that had just landed, waited until he had positive verification that the 757 was clear of all the runways.

Kevin Clover, our Regional Safety Program Manager, once told me that the one attribute he wanted most in a pilot is that of being situationally aware. The captain of the Meteorite was aware, he didn't leave what he heard on the radio to the processor part of his brain. He consciously listened as if for the very first time. Because he stayed consciously aware and alert to his surroundings, those who depended on him remained safe.

Airports are dynamic, changing and potentially lethal environments. Use your conscious brain. Each taxi is a new situation, each flight a new possibility. Let's enjoy all of it.
Kathleen O’Brien, SPM, LGB FSDO

Rolling Through Stop Signs: Lessons from my Dad

My father never stopped for a stop sign in his entire driving career. He was driving by ten years old having learned in fields and on rutted country roads. Long after I had begun living on my own, I remember visiting home and if we took a drive, he simply rolled through stop signs and busy intersections. Dad never had a car accident, incident or even got a traffic ticket of any kind. Times have changed. If he were alive today, Dad probably could not retain that perfect driving record.

Our airport environments have changed as well. Taxiing around airports is not as simple as it used to be. Runway hold bars are painted-not at the runway edge, but further from the centerline into what some of us remember as the taxiway. And traffic congestion is such that rolling across those hold bars is not something to be done without careful and conscious awareness.

When I was learning to fly, taxiing was just something I had to do and my attention was on using my feet to stay centered on that yellow line. Mostly, I wanted to get to the Real Part of the lesson, the exciting run-up and flight. I learned about airport markings and signs by osmosis not by careful study. My concentration was on other parts of the lesson, the radio, the rudders, the noise.

Taxiing safely and within the regulations is critical to the to the welfare of all the other people with whom I share the airport environment and to preservation of the privileges of my certificate. Just as Dad wouldn't be able to continue to roll through stop signs were he to drive in Southern California today without some negative consequences, we pilots must change our mind-set about ground operations. When we begin to taxi for take-off, we are in a critically important phase of flight. It is true whether there is a control tower or not.

SoCal Aviation Safety Seminars

For up to date information on the status of these seminars and to make online reservations visit www.awp.faa.gov/flightstandards

Socal Seminar Times are from 7:00 to 9:00 PM unless otherwise noted. No reservations are required unless noted by *. Never a fee. - For more information contact the Safety Program Manager listed in the FSDO area heading containing the event in question. All FAA Safety Seminars satisfy the requirements of AC-61.91H; the Pilot Proficiency Awards Program (Wings) and /or the Aviation Maintenance Technician Awards Program; AC-65-25A.

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