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Aviation Assignment Air Travel

   

Added on  2020-05-04

19 Pages5534 Words31 Views
Chapter 1: Introduction to the StudyBackgroundAir travel is arguably the most appealing mode of transport across the globe. This has made the aircraft industry witnessed a consistent growth over the years, leading to increased number of airports, aircraft, and the increase in the number of travelers who move around for business, leisure or other purposes. In the United States, the industry has seen an escalation in thenumber of private aircraft owners. This growth poses various challenges such as long working hours of staff and safety issues. Besides occasional accidents that occur when the aircraft is in transit, other safety issues, which prove to be fatal at times, arise in the aerodromes. The most concerning safety issue are runway incursion. A runaway incursion refers to a situation where a person, vehicle, luggage, or even an aircraft happens to be wrongfully present in the protected area designated for taking off or landing of aircraft.The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) have given the runway safety top priority among major air transportation concerns. The need for highly prioritizing runway safety came after realizing that the incursions occur very quickly, leaving the persons concerned with little or no time for corrective measures. The FAA and NTSB aim to improve the runway safety and also ensure that the aerodrome capacity remains unaffected. Some of the factors contributing to runway incursions include weather, conditional clearances, use of intersecting runways, changes in departures clearances, and aerodrome designs besides lack of communication among staff members. Weather conditions such as fog can lower visibility in the airport, increasing the likelihood of disorientation of flight crew on their position when taxiing. Sometimes use of non-common phraseology or non-adherence to the standard aviation phrases when issuing direction can lead toconfusion between controllers and flight crews. To avert or reduce the occurrence of runway

incursions, the FAA has recommended deployment of technological systems such as Runway Status Lights (RSWL). Runway Incursions are a Global Threat (1 &1/2)It is an occurrence of aerodrome that is characterized by incorrect presence of aircraft, vehicle or person on the protected area for landing or taking off o aircraft. Sometimes incursions happen due to the failure of the pilot or driver of the port motor vehicles to observe an ATC clearance or when compliance is with an inappropriate ATC clearance (Chang & Wong, 2012) Incursions increase the risk for collision for aircraft on the ground. Research shows that most causes are because of incorrect entry of an aircraft or vehicle on the runway, the presence of vacating craft on the runway, incorrect runway crossing by craft or vehicle, incorrect spacing between successive landing or vacating and landing or take off without ATC clearance. Statistics show that the threat is a global issue and not unique to the United States. Various countries have reported increased cases of rising of incursions. Canada and Italy are among the countries with highest cases of incursions hence the need to seek interventions due to the risks posed to the public and the Airlines crews (Campion-Smith, 2013). More often than not, there is actual collisions causing loss of life, destruction of property and injuries sustained. Due to the concern among many countries about the safety in the airports following sustained cases of incursions, the United Nations formed The International Civil Aviation Organization with a mandate to develop international standards and Recommend practices which the individual countries civil aviation bodies reference while making their regulations. No one country has monopoly over the existence of runway incursions or immune to them rather; they occur randomly across the globe hence the need for a combined global effort to avert the situation by developing and implementing international standards regulating the aviation space.

Problem StatementThe research problem here is an ever-increasing number of runway incursions on a frequent basis despite the deployment of several preventive systems and technologies. This problem is closely linked with a pilot’s lack of awareness about their surroundings, which questions the overall effectiveness of anti-incursion technologies that have already been deployed. A recent report by FAA argues that of all the reported cases of runway incursions, 80% could have been avoided if persons in the airfields were more aware of the surroundings, which again points towards the lack of effective anti-incursion technology. Runway incursions are among the most life and property-risking occurrences in the aviation industry. Therefore, there is a dire need for the aviation authorities to identify the most effective technologies that could help improve runway safety by reducing the number of runway incursions (Stroeve, Blom, & Bakker, 2013). Frequent runway incursions prove to be undermining for aviation operations, in addition to the risk of losing life or property. Several runway incursion avoidance measures introduced by the FAA have proved ineffective. For example, the use of Runway Status Lights (RSWL) to avert or reduce the occurrence of runway incursions has proved ineffective in most cases involving operational evaluation (Eggert, 2006). The RSWL system works through examining satellite and radar data from the Airport Surface Detection Equipment model X (ASDE-X) which also includes location information about aircrafts and vehicles within an aerodrome (Eggert, 2006). Due to the fatal nature of the incursions case, the FAA has continuously emphasized the adoption and use of the RSWL technology for aviation incursion avoidance. Since it was introduced back in 2011, there is no significant evidence of the system's success in curbing the runway incursions. In fact, empirical evidence provides opposing findings. For an instant, the number of runway incursions

at NY area airports nearly doubled from 2013 to 2015 (Hoffer, 2015). Therefore, there is a dire need to investigate whether the installation of these technological systems in the airfield has beeneffective in averting the occurrences of runway incursions. Furthermore, it is also imperative to explore the main contributing factors that have rendered such technologies ineffective in curbing the number of runway incursions.With above concern, the research problem that this study is going to explore is the challenge to the air traffic control of the threat of runway incursions on the airfield as a possibility even with the new anti-incursion technology installed.The 10 Busiest U.S. Airports As stated earlier, flying is the most appealing mode of transport across the diversity of the world’s population hence every individual with a chance to fly does it with glad. It has caused a globally increasing passenger footfall. As the United States economy showing signs of recovery, America has among the busiest airports globally. Airport traffic is measured on the number of passengers rather than the no of Crafts operating from it. Based on airport passenger traffic in theyear 2016, the top ten airports are as shown below. RankAirport NameCityPassenger Traffic (million)201620152014`20131Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International AirportAtlanta50.4849.3446.6045.312Los Angeles International AirportLos Angeles39.6436.3534.3232.433O'Hare International AirportChicago37.5036.3233.6832.324Dallas/Fort Worth International AirportDallas/FortWorth31.2731.5930.7629.04

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