Declared Distances and Safety Areas

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject Engineering - Safety Engineering, grade: 1,0, University of Applied Sciences Wildau (Wildau Institute of Technology), course: ATC / ATM, language: English, abstract: In a conventional air transport system, airports and aircraft are highly dependent on each other in providing service for their customers and passengers. Especially advances in the engine and airframe technology forced airports to plan, design, and construct facilities necessary to ensure that they were not left behind in full participation in a high growth industry. Nowadays international airports are progressively faced with huge aircraft with greatly increased wingspans carrying almost 900 people. These new circumstances affect airport layouts eminently. Beside the configuration of cargo and passenger terminals, geometric and structural design of pavements, including taxiways, exists and aprons, number and orientation of runways, the length of the runway is a main factor which has to match the improved parameters. Nevertheless, international airports operate with a wide range of present-day aircraft which have quite different requirements of the runway. At this point it is up to the airport owner to declare distances on the runway which are available for satisfying the takeoff runs and landings of airplanes.

It is exactly the mentioned runway which plays a central role in the entire airport facility system. The runway has always been the most crucial point of all maneuvering areas where all takeoff and landing movements take place. It is proven that takeoff and landing phases are the most critical parts of all stages of a flight. They are demanding the highest skills from the crews and placing huge stresses and strains on the aircraft itself. According to the Air Transport Safety Survey, runway excursions are the most common type of accident reported annually both in the European region and elsewhere in the world. 106 excursions with commercial and executive aircraft operations worldwide were recorded in 2012. That means there are at least two runway excursions each week worldwide. ICAO Aircraft Accident Data Reports have shown that aircraft undershooting or overrunning the runway during landing or takeoff suffer significant damage. To minimize such damage, it is considered necessary to provide structural measures or additional areas at and beyond the end of the runway or even surrounding the landing strip. Subsequently, provisions of declared dis-tances and safety areas make an important contribution to preclude potentially hazards to aircraft and to protect passengers and people on the ground in case of an aircraft veers off or overruns the runway.