Washington-area airports received mixed marks in a recent congressional report measuring runway safety.
The report measures facilities on their progress toward meeting the 2015 deadline for installing 1,000-foot buffers at each end of a runway, which would stop a plane from skidding off the runway and into trouble.
None of Reagan National Airport’s three runways have the 1,000-foot safety zones, according to the report, which is based on FAA data. Two of National’s runways have 1,000-foot zones at one end, but have smaller zones of 200 feet and 750 feet on the other ends and the third has safety zones of 170 feet and 120 feet.
“We are working with the FAA,” Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority spokesman Rob Yingling said. “The FAA is overseeing the implementation of the regulations.”
Dulles International Airport’s three runways meet the safety standards already.
The report, compiled by the office of Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., found that at 325 of the nation’s 573 commercial airports, at least one runway lacks the safety zone.
There have been 45 fatal crashes due to aircraft overrunning runways since 1983, the report said, including one last December in Chicago when a Southwest Airlines plane overshot a runway and rolled into a highway, killing a boy riding in a passing vehicle.
“Nearly 60 percent of our nation’s airports are an accident waiting to happen, with runways that can’t stop a runaway plane,” Lautenberg, who sponsored legislation creating the requirement last year, told The Examiner. “The D.C. region is no exception. The FAA needs to act — and act now — to protect the safety of the traveling public.”
Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Lauren Brown told The Associated Press that the agency plans have the required improvements in place by 2015.
At Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, three of the four runways do not have large enough buffers. The extra space to be added on the runways ranges from 200 feet to 950 feet. The fourth runway meets the specifications.
“We are not in compliance, but will be in compliance by the mandated deadline in 2015 and might be in compliance before the deadline,” Maryland Aviation Administration spokeswoman Cheryl Stewart said. “We are working with our airline partners and the FAA on the safety improvements.”
