Feb. 18, 2016
The NBAA Safety Committee has produced a new 16-page guide to help flight departments reduce the risks of runway excursions, the most common type of accident in business aviation, according to the International Business Aviation Council’s (IBAC’s) 2013 Business Aviation Safety Brief.
The guide – Reducing Business Aviation Runway Excursions – explains how to identify potential causes of runway excursions and how to lessen those risks, beginning with an assessment of a department’s risk exposure. It provides real-life examples of runway excursions and offers suggestions for learning from them. It also outlines a set of protocols to enable operators to benchmark their runway excursion prevention efforts.
“Flight departments of all shapes and sizes have the potential to benefit from the contents of this guide,” the document says. “It is written primarily to facilitate thought and discussion surrounding runway excursions, and therefore is a useful tool for flight department leadership; however, anyone can gain a better understanding of the latest runway excursion prevention methods by reading this guide.”
According to Ben Kohler, head of the NBAA Safety Committee’s Technical Excellence Working Group, this new resource can help overcome misconceptions about runway excursions. For instance, some pilots may believe that using a stabilized approach while landing will always prevent an excursion, but that is not the case, as problems can surface after the approach is established, he explained. Also, some pilots may be unaware of all the hazards that can lead to an excursion.
“The NBAA guide is an easy-to-read document that provides all of the information in one place, so it gives pilots and flight departments a handy tool they can use to scrub their operations to improve safety,” Kohler said.
Read Reducing Business Aviation Runway Excursions. (PDF)
NBAA’s Safety Committee has identified runway excursions as one of its Top Safety Focus Areas. Review the full list of safety focus areas.
International Business Aviation Council Ltd.