The Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday it is opening an audit into runway runway risks at the 45 busiest U.S. airports after a series of nuisance near-misses.
Last week, the National Transportation Safety Board said air traffic controllers last month allowed an Alaska Airlines plane ALK.N to take off at Tennessee’s Nashville International Airport on the same runway that a Southwest Airlines plane LUV.N was allowed to cross.
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The runway intrusion audit will include a risk profile for each airport, along with identification of potential gaps in procedures, equipment and operations, and recommendations to improve safety, and is expected to be completed in early 2025.
Over the past two years, a series of near misses have raised concerns about aviation safety in the United States and put pressure on understaffed air traffic control operations. FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said last month that the number of serious runway invasion incidents had dropped by more than 50 percent.
