Staff Edit: Safety on the ground

As if flight delays, lost baggage and long lines didn’t cause enough frustration to travelers, officials at Boston’s Logan Airport have failed to prevent runway violations between airplanes during taxi and on the runway, putting passengers in danger of collisions.

The runway incursions presented safety risks not just once, but 16 times in the past year. In the airport’s most recent incident, one airplane tried crossing a runway while at the same time another was taking off, causing the plane to abort its takeoff after it had already received clearance.

The incident was the second runway incursion in just over a week. On Sept. 27, a FedEx cargo jet that had just started its takeoff had to abort after a propeller plane started crossing the same runway, The Boston Globe reported.

According to related reports, the two controllers, one of which handles takeoffs and landings, and the other in charge or airplane taxiing, failed to communicate with one another during the incidents.

It should be an embarrassment to the Massachusetts Port Authority, which operates Logan, for failing to prevent these near encounters, especially after new and expensive investments into two of its terminals. MassPort should invest more into runway safety, whatever the cost, and investigate ways these close encounters can be avoided, because the safety of passengers should be kept a priority.

Though MassPort may blame “false targets,” or blips, on radar screens for leading to the runway incursions, no excuse can explain why 16 near encounters took place in the past year, while no incursions were reported in the year prior to October 2004. In the event of a radar malfunction, the airport should maintain enough ground crew to make sure planes are kept at a safe distance from one another, and install a back-up system for more reliable data.

The “tiger team” installed by the Federal Aviation Administration to oversee the runway problems has said it would “inspect everything from A to Z,” and it should follow-up to ensure the investigation is carried out in a timely, efficient manner.

Providing pilots with a brochure of near-encounter “hotspots” at Logan, as the FAA has proposed doing, is no solution to the problem because officials should not rely on pilots alone for preventing runway crashes. Though pilots should do all they can to for their passengers’ safety, traffic controllers have the ultimate responsibility for ensuring safety on the ground.

According to the organization Independent Traveler, Boston Logan Airport ranks at the bottom 10 in terms of the number of delayed departures compared with other airports in the United States, even though it is the nation’s 17th busiest airport.

For the sake of passengers’ safety, Logan should not let these incidents fly away without having been solved, or it may land itself into another close encounter. It should not let such incidents occur for a 17th time – and certainly should not wait for one to be more than a close encounter.