Background
Every year, millions of successful landings occur on
Canadian runways. However, there is a risk that accidents resulting in loss of
life, injury, and aircraft damage can occur during the landing phase of flight.
These accidents include runway overruns, runway excursions, landings short of
the runway, and tail strikes.Footnote 1 Operators, regulators, and air navigation
service providers need to take more action to prevent approach-and-landing
accidents, and to minimize the risks of adverse consequences if a runway
overrun occurs.
Stable approaches significantly increase the chances of a
safe landing.
ResearchFootnote 2 indicates that 3.5% to 4% of
approaches are unstable. Of these, 97% are continued to a landing, with
only 3% resulting in a go-around. Without improvements in stable-approach
policy compliance, most unstable approaches will continue to a landing,
increasing the risk of approach-and-landing accidents.
Additionally, pilots must calculate the landing distance
required, so they need timely and accurate runway surface condition information
to make correct calculations, as snow, rain, or ice can affect landing
distance.
When a runway overrun occurs, it is important that an
aircraft have an adequate safety area beyond the runway’s end. At some
airports, these have not yet been implemented, and the terrain beyond the end
of the runway could contribute to aircraft damage and injuries to passengers
and crew. This area, therefore, must be sufficiently clear of obstacles and
properly graded. There is currently no requirement in Canada requiring runways
to meet international standards and recommended practices for safety areas.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) has
investigated a number of landing accidents that have highlighted the need for
runway end safety areas, and improved runway surface condition reporting. In
Canada, from 2009 to 2013, Canadian-registered aircraft were involved in an
average of 150 approach-and-landing accidents every year, of which 6% were
runway overrun accidents.
There has been some progress since this issue was included on the Watchlist in 2010. Some airports have improved runway surfaces and safety areas. NAV CANADA has taken measures to improve runway surface condition reporting for pilots, and now provides guidance for stabilized descents in its approach procedures. Transport Canada (TC) is conducting a risk-based analysis to revise its runway safety area standards. However, the number of landing accidents and runway overruns has not decreased, so until TC completes its risk analysis and revises its standards, the risk to the public remains.
Solution
Transport Canada and operators must do more to reduce the
number of unstable approaches that are continued to a landing.
Transport Canada also must complete its risk-based analysis
and move forward with regulatory changes.
Airports must develop tailored solutions to lengthen runway
end safety areas or install other engineered systems and structures to safely
stop planes that overrun runways.
Footnote 1
1.
Recent TSB aviation investigation reports
include: A10H0004, A11A0035, A11H0002, A11H0003, A11O0098, A12A0082, A12W0004,
A12O0005, A12P0034, A12Q0161, and A12W0004
Footnote 2
2.
Flight Safety Foundation, "Failure to
Mitigate," AeroSafety World (February 2013)