Size Does Matter

By Timmy Watson in News on Nov 4, 2006 7:25PM

According to a new report, 26 runways don't meet the safety standard, six are at O’Hare and two are at Midway. The safety standard referenced is a 1,000 foot overrun that the government said is needed. We aren't really sure why it took a report to identify the lack of space on the runway, haven't we always known how long the runways were?

FAA spokeswoman, Laura Brown, responded to the report by saying all airports are being upgraded and they expect all runways to be in compliance by 2015. At least one runway in half of the commercial airports in the United States are short of the requirement.

It seems runway issues have gotten worse in the past few years; the incident last winter at Midway, an airplane in Seattle that took off the wrong runway, and the jet in Kentucky that also took off on the wrong runway and crashed. While this report doesn't necessarily focus on any of the confusion that goes on with runways, we hope the upgrades will include some clarity to this befuddlement.