The number of serious runway safety incidents at U.S. airports has increased over the past year – putting thousands of lives at risk. There were more than 50 serious runway incidents in 2023, clearly demonstrating that America's approach to runway safety is insufficient and under enormous stress.
In the latest episode of Aerospace Unplugged, Honeywell Aerospace Technologies President & CEO Jim Currier discusses new technology to address runway safety and why the flying public is calling on Congress, the FAA, and the aviation industry to address this alarming trend.
This is a timely podcast episode you won't want to miss.
Also check out the Honeywell feature article on runway safety at https://aerospace.honeywell.com/runwaysafety
The number of serious runway safety incidents at U.S. airports has increased over the past year – putting thousands of lives at risk. There were more than 50 serious runway incidents in 2023, clearly demonstrating that America's approach to runway safety is insufficient and under enormous stress.
In the latest episode of Aerospace Unplugged, Honeywell Aerospace Technologies President & CEO Jim Currier discusses new technology to address runway safety and why the flying public is calling on Congress, the FAA, and the aviation industry to address this alarming trend.
This is a timely podcast episode you won't want to miss.
Also check out the Honeywell feature article on runway safety at https://aerospace.honeywell.com/runwaysafety
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:23:09
Unknown
Welcome to Aerospace Unplugged. I'm Adam Cress. Hi, everyone, and thanks for joining me on the podcast. Today. We're going to tackle an aviation issue today that I've had a chance to learn a lot about in the past few months. And it's one that's been in the news lately for unfortunate reasons. The issue we're going to tackle with my special guest today is runway safety airports across the U.S. and around the world are getting busier and busier.
00:00:23:11 - 00:00:46:19
Unknown
There are simply more planes taking off and landing than ever before, and that creates risk. There have been a growing number of high profile close calls in the past year at U.S. airports where one aircraft nearly hit another upon takeoff or landing. And then early in January in Tokyo, Japan Airlines A350 struck a smaller Coast Guard aircraft on the ground that was not supposed to be on the runway.
00:00:46:20 - 00:01:07:03
Unknown
Five people lost their lives in that accident. So what is being done to improve runway safety? That's what our guests today will help us understand. I'd like to welcome in Honeywell Aerospace Technologies president and CEO Jim Courier. He's had a long career in aerospace, working with technologies that help improve flight safety. So welcome in, Jim. Hi, Adam. Nice to be here.
00:01:07:04 - 00:01:30:11
Unknown
Thank you. All right, Jim. So we've seen runway safety incidents and these incursions increase fairly significantly over the past year or so. So take us through what are the runway safety issues, What's actually happening that we need to address? So runway safety events happen when a pilot loses their situational awareness in and around the runway. And there's three categories that we look at when we talk about runway runway events that may occur.
00:01:30:13 - 00:01:50:20
Unknown
The first one being runway excursions. So this is when an aircraft is landing and or taking off and actually runs off the end of the runway. Then you have what we call wrong surface events. So this is when an aircraft on the runway or possibly they're on the wrong one way or possibly on a taxiway. Then the third event is actually a runway incursion.
00:01:50:20 - 00:02:10:14
Unknown
So this is when you have either an aircraft or a vehicle that may be on the runway at the wrong time while an aircraft is landing and or taking off. So there's basically the three categories that we look at when we talk about runway events. Okay. Yeah, runway is that, like I said, getting busier and busier. So the the likelihood of confusion is rising.
00:02:10:16 - 00:02:35:06
Unknown
Unfortunately, we also what happened in Japan early in January of this year that resulted in the death of five people. Beyond that, we've seen an increase in close calls or these these near-misses on runways in recent years. So why are these types of incidents increasing? So to be very clear, first and foremost, you know, flying is the safest form of transportation without a doubt.
00:02:35:08 - 00:02:55:15
Unknown
But now, as we've coming out of COVID, a couple of things are happening. One, the volume of flights have been increasing dramatically. And at the same time, during COVID, we actually lost a lot of people exited the marketplace. Pilots left the industry, air traffic controllers left the industry. And so now what we have is less experienced pilots, less experienced air traffic controllers.
00:02:55:17 - 00:03:25:15
Unknown
Now coupled with a high volume environment that we're working in. And the tragic, tragic incident that occurred in Japan. Fundamentally, what it does, it just underscores the need to introduce technology, more enhanced situational awareness for the pilot in the cockpit, not only within our domestic markets that aircraft travel in today, but also internationally as well. Okay. So Honeywell has a a long legacy of safety products in aviation and have had some of the breakthroughs that have helped save lives.
00:03:25:17 - 00:03:50:02
Unknown
What are they doing in the area of runway safety? Are there products that exist, products that are coming? Both. We have products that exist today and was forthcoming. We think about what exists today. You know, we have our runway awareness advisory system, what we call raised and over that span spun off some products, most smart runway, smart landing, or generically speaking, what we call Smart X at the end of the day.
00:03:50:04 - 00:04:17:22
Unknown
And really what Smart X does that it addresses the two primary areas. I mentioned a moment ago in terms of those categories that we're referring to, whether we're talking about runway excursions and providing that enhanced timely notification to a pilot. Do you have a unstable approach coming into the airport? Is the aircraft not configured properly for landing when it's coming in to the airport or as you're approaching the aircraft or the runway and or taking off?
00:04:17:22 - 00:04:46:08
Unknown
Is the runway through calculations going to be too short for you to do that? And the second one is about the wrong surface events that may happen. So that's the second element that our our smart X system helps take care of and specifically around that, it's really providing that enhanced pilot situational awareness, the notifications as to what runway are they landing on, what runway are they taxiing on right from to in that regard.
00:04:46:08 - 00:05:12:10
Unknown
So those provide you that to on the ground at the moment. The technology that we're developing now for the future is what we call our surface alerts or we call serve a and then actually brings the technology into the cockpit. So if you think about it for a moment today, it is mandated that aircraft that are flying have ADS-B systems on them to actually provide airborne collision avoidance.
00:05:12:11 - 00:05:53:05
Unknown
But that same sort of technology is not available on the ground to provide that situational awareness into the cockpit. That's what safari technology does. So as you are approaching a runway, it uses the GPS coordinates off the aircraft through automatically. What's being broadcasted on the ADS-B runs it through computational models. They can actually provide indications to the pilot that there's the potential of a collision that's going to occur because it will intensify an aircraft that's already in the runway, provide the computational analysis and provides that added level of assurance and notification and hence advanced situational awareness to the pilot to take some commensurate action.
00:05:53:07 - 00:06:16:01
Unknown
Yeah. So it seems like that sort of that sort of system, surface alerts would you know, it would it would work to give better eyes and ears to the pilots on the ground. Right. That you could see better around themselves because right now, correct me if I'm wrong, but they're listening to ATC taxi way here, go runway left, hold short here.
00:06:16:02 - 00:06:38:08
Unknown
But they need to other than what they can see out the front of the airplane, they have to trust what they're hearing from ATC. There's no backup system. That is correct. Okay. So what this does is it actually brings that technology into the cockpit. So actually getting an oral warning, you know, that there's an imminent potential issue that's arising and or a visual cue on your display.
00:06:38:10 - 00:07:03:22
Unknown
So you get both of those happening in a in accordance with or I should say, over and above what you've been hearing through air traffic control. Correct. So, you know, there's many layers of security and safety in aviation. And what we're talking about with Cerf, I would add a new and important layer of security. Right. And as you think about safety in general, it's always about layering in more safety on top of safety on top of safety to get the most safe operating environment you can be within.
00:07:04:03 - 00:07:30:03
Unknown
Yeah. So is the industry looking at this as a whole? I know Honeywell is only one company within a big industry. Are you aware of other similar technologies out there? Other technologies are out there and we consider ourselves to be a leading provider of awareness type technology in the marketplace today. But there are other avionics providers out there that are solutions coupled with their ADS-B capabilities that actually now enable other safety enhancements as well.
00:07:30:08 - 00:07:54:20
Unknown
Okay. So my understanding is that the FAA has been primarily focused on checking out runway safety technologies that are ground based and that rely on air traffic control. But can you tell us about those efforts and the solutions that we see there that may be existing compared with detect the the cockpit based solutions? Yes. So that's what we would call airport surface technology today.
00:07:55:01 - 00:08:21:03
Unknown
And it's actually been deployed has been deployed to approximately 35 different airports around the United States. And what that does, it does provide this sort of situational awareness that I'm talking about, but it only provides it to air traffic control. Yeah. So the air traffic controller is provided a warning of a potential incursion of an aircraft on the wrong on the wrong one runway, but they have to then start doing the computational analysis themselves.
00:08:21:03 - 00:08:47:08
Unknown
Right. Is there going to be an issue that's going to arise? And so it's that latency of getting that information into the cockpit with a pilot to have more situational awareness. That's the gap that we're trying to close, because every second that we can provide an additional awareness of what's transpiring or the events that are transpiring just provides more enhanced capability to be able to take an evasive maneuver.
00:08:47:10 - 00:09:11:08
Unknown
And that technology today has been in place for some time, this surface detection technology that I'm talking about. But the fact of the matter is it's been at the expense of about $550 million of news. 35 airports. There's over 400 more airports that need to get this technology deployed. And if you think about the cost and the time to deploy this, it could be another decade before we see this technology.
00:09:11:08 - 00:09:45:23
Unknown
And the expense at taxpayer expense could be overwhelming. Yeah, So the FAA has no no requirement, no mandate for cockpit based runway safety technology, correct? That is correct. Okay. Now be it. Now I will I will make mention. It's also worth noting that the NTSB back in 2000 and actually provided a recommendation that not only providing the subsurface detection equipment in and around the airports to provide the awareness to air traffic control, They also required or they actually asked that this technology be brought into the cockpit for that enhanced situational awareness.
00:09:45:23 - 00:10:12:05
Unknown
And that just hasn't been done yet. Okay. So the FAA then has has not directly acted on on runway safety in some time. What do you think? Or have they what are they doing? What are the next steps in potentially getting this technology either mandated or more widely adopted? The first thing they need to do is just incentivize providers and developers of this technology and the airlines to incorporate it.
00:10:12:07 - 00:10:36:02
Unknown
The technology that I'm talking about in terms of the smart X technology and or ultimately survey technology, so incentivizing the industry to continue to develop this and to make it available just is going to increase that situational awareness in the cockpit for them. Okay. You mentioned the NTSB and the fact that they they have, you know, outwardly recommend recommended the implementation of this technology.
00:10:36:06 - 00:10:53:14
Unknown
They don't have the authority to enforce implementing yet. But what else have they said about what can be done or what have pilots associations, you know, outside of the companies and the FAA involved? What is the rest of the aviation world kind of saying about this? So even just recently, this has become a topic up on the Hill.
00:10:53:16 - 00:11:36:14
Unknown
So the NTSB chair, Jennifer Homendy, actually had come out and started indicating that in actually getting on record in advocating that they need to include more of this runway awareness technology and more of this situational awareness to enhance safety into the cockpits. The second thing that I would say is from a pilot's perspective. So Captain Jason Ambrosi, who's actually the president of the Airline Pilots Association as recently as November, actually was talking specifically around this particular topic, talking about flight deck enhancements, increasing situational awareness for pilots, therefore enabling more safety to be brought into the industry.
00:11:36:16 - 00:11:57:03
Unknown
What do you think will eventually cause a shift to get more of this technology to be adopted? Do you think it comes from industry or from a new law? I mean, ultimately legislation I think, will come into play here a little bit, right? So providing additional resources, providing additional funding to develop the technology and to to the technology.
00:11:57:05 - 00:12:19:00
Unknown
So I think from a legislative standpoint, from a regulatory standpoint, both agencies need to take a very, very hard look at what's happening here and ensure that it becomes a priority across the industry. Okay. Well, you said it earlier, and it remains true that flying is still by far the safest mode of transportation. As much as we've talked about runway incursions today and potential problems.
00:12:19:02 - 00:12:35:03
Unknown
It's valid because we do see them and the number is growing. But what do you think? What would your message be to to everyday folks who are maybe learning about this issue and maybe they fly? They don't want to become afraid. Right. But they know that there is a problem here. I mean, we definitely don't want to instill a sense of fear.
00:12:35:05 - 00:13:02:09
Unknown
I mean, I personally spend probably three quarters of my time in the air flying. And I do feel and it is the safest mode of transportation, I feel much safer getting into an aircraft than I do getting into my car and driving somewhere. All we're talking about is there's never can be enough that you can do, right. So as new technology is developed, as new capability is developed, if it does enable enhanced safety, why not incorporate it?
00:13:02:11 - 00:13:18:08
Unknown
Because at the end of the day, none of that should ever be sacrificed in the name of safety and to continue to improve our industry. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks again, Jim, for joining me on the podcast today. Always an interesting conversation, especially this one. Thank you very much. And I welcome the opportunity to talk on a very important topic.
00:13:18:12 - 00:13:35:06
Unknown
Well, great. I want to thank everyone out there for listening this episode. There's a lot more information on runway safety on our website. If you check out Aerospace, start Honeywell dot com, you'll find a lot more information on runway safety. But thanks again for listening. And we'll catch you on the next episode of Aerospace Unplugged.