Editorial: Air travelers at risk

Monday, Dec. 10, 2007 | 7:07 a.m.

Failed leadership at the Federal Aviation Administration regarding airport technology, among other issues, has greatly raised the risk of collisions on the nation's airport runways, a new congressional investigation says.

A report released Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, acknowledges that the FAA had successfully reduced the number of near-collisions on runways after they peaked in 2001.

Nonetheless, the GAO says, the FAA's efforts to maintain those reductions has "subsequently waned." The 31 near-collisions that happened in 2006 and the 24 reported this year still pose what the GAO called "a high risk of catastrophic runway collision" and place U.S. travelers at significant risk.

Some of the reasons cited by the GAO are ones we've heard before: Air traffic control technology updates are moving too slowly at most of the nation's airports, and air traffic controllers are working too many hours, which can lead to fatigue among those who are supposed to monitor runway traffic.

But another contributing factor, the GAO says, is that "no single office is taking charge" of the effort to address runway safety problems. The FAA's Office of Runway Safety operated without a permanent director for two years, has cut its staff by almost half in the past four years and hasn't created a national runway safety plan since 2002, the GAO reports.

The GAO acknowledged that the FAA is making plans to improve runway markings and pilot training. But the congressional investigators said the FAA needs to be more aggressive in addressing other issues, such as improving the collection of safety data and reducing the amount of overtime that air traffic controllers are required to work.

As the GAO recommended, the FAA should complete a long-overdue update of its runway safety plan and work harder to collect accurate data on accidents and safety lapses on and around airport runways and ramps.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., who requested the GAO study, aptly told The New York Times last week that "the FAA is ignoring too many red flags."