Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Improved safety sought with NLV airport lights

The Federal Aviation Administration is testing new runway lights at the North Las Vegas Airport in an attempt to cut down on the number of planes that come close to colliding at the general aviation airfield.

In the past five years the North Las Vegas Airport has drastically reduced the number of close calls, called runway incursions by the FAA, with only two in fiscal year 2003, but the airport was still the site of one of only two accidents last year in the nation involving aircraft collisions.

"We want to continue to get the numbers of incursions down at North Las Vegas," said Wilson Felder, manager of the FAA's office of communication, navigation and surveillance systems. "North Las Vegas is unique because it has three runways and is much bigger than most general aviation airports.

"The addition of the lights really brings it up to the standards of other larger airports. It looks like you're flying into Los Angeles or Denver now."

The blinking yellow lights, known as runway guard lights, have been placed at 29 intersections on the runway tarmac in order to help pilots recognize where there could be oncoming aircraft traffic. The federally funded $619,000 project will be tested during the next six months and, if successful, will become an option avaliable to other aviation facilities as part of the FAA's airport improvement fund.

The lights are the latest effort to make the North Las Vegas Airport safer after 36 close calls in the past five years. A new tower with better sight lines, upgraded signage and repainted runway markers have all made a difference, said Doug McNeeley, manager of the North Las Vegas Airport.

"Our tower was the model for other general aviation airports and we have the chance to again be on the cutting edge with the lights," McNeeley said. "We're the first general aviation airport to have these lights, and the pilots who have seen them have already told me they like them.

"Any sort of visual cue that we can provide pilots helps."

At North Las Vegas the lights are mostly mounted so that they sit about two feet off the ground, but some are also embedded in the runway itself in areas where runways may face into the sun making the taller lights harder to see.

Felder said that the lights are similar to what is used at larger airports that experience foggy conditions, such as San Francisco International Airport.

Jason Rury, chief flight instructor for West Air Aviation Flight Training, said that the lights should be boon for pilots.

"It's probably a little strange the first time people see them, because it's not something you see at general aviation airports," said Rury, who teaches students how to fly at the airport. "The lights definitely help to alert pilots where the hold short lines are."

FAA reports have shown that runway incursions are decreasing across the country. Nationally there were 324 near collisions in fiscal year 2003, down from 339 in 2002 and from 405 in 2000.

Last year North Las Vegas had two incursions, down from seven the year before, but the airport was also the site of two small airplanes colliding on Sept. 23, 2003.

A Piper Arrow was cleared to land at the airport and a minute later a Piper Mirage began taxiing down an intersecting runway. The planes collided, and the pilots suffered minor injuries.

The National Transportation and Safety Board is investigating the accident and has not yet released its final report, but general aviation airports such as North Las Vegas generally have more close calls than large commercial airports, partially because of the less-experienced pilots that frequent smaller airports.

"There is a high transient population of pilots going into North Las Vegas Airport because Las Vegas is a destination," Felder said. "A lot of pilots flying in there are used to smaller airports with one runway. Once you're off the runway at those airports you're off, but at North Las Vegas, you are going to have to cross over other runways."

The FAA has found that nearly two-thirds of the near-collisions nationwide are caused by pilot error, or by the error of someone driving another vehicle on the runways.

The agency ranks the severity of incursions based upon how close the objects came to colliding. The FAA rates near-collisions on a four-level scale ranging from a minor infraction with an extremely low chance of a collision -- a D -- to an emergency situation in which a collision is narrowly averted -- an A.

The FAA considers an incursion to be any incident in which an aircraft, vehicle or some other object enters a runway reserved for use by another aircraft. Something as seemingly innocuous as a plane's nose crossing over a marked runway line while another plane has called within range could qualify as a near miss.

North Las Vegas' two incidents in 2003 were ranked at C level. In 2000 the airport had 14 incursions, one B, two Cs and 11 Ds.

At McCarran International Airport the number of incursions rose slightly from two to three from 2002 to 2003, but all three of the 2003 infractions were rated as Ds, while one of the 2002 incidents was a C and the other was a D.

There were more than 500,000 takeoffs and landings at McCarran in 2003, and more than 227,000 at North Las Vegas last year.

Some neighbors of North Las Vegas Airport have complained in the past about crashes of small planes at and around the airport, and questioned if the airport is being operated safely.

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