Runway incursions have no single cause or and no single solution, a group of aviation experts agreed during a Honeywell-sponsored webinar in early March.
Bernhard Koessler, global practice leader with insurance company Allianz Commercial and a member of the webinar panel, told the online session that runway incursions have a variety of causes, including airport configuration, sterile cockpit lapses, and weak English language proficiency.
Capt. Stuart Clarke, flight safety advisor to the British Airline Pilots’ Association, agreed, “There doesn’t seem to be a common cause.”
Tzvetomir Blajev, director of Europe and global operational safety for Flight Safety Foundation and a former air traffic controller, added that both controllers and pilots must consider the impact of their actions. If controllers change the active runway and then there are other complications, Blajev said, it should not be surprising if a pilot makes an error.
“There is no…
