by Footage has emerged of a parked passenger plane in Argentina spinning out of control during a storm, and colliding with a staircase.
The incident happened on Sunday when a severe storm and 100mph winds hit the Aeroparque Jorge Newbery airport in Buenos Aires. The footage then shows stairs and other airport equipment being blown across the tarmac at speed.
In a statement, Aerolineas Argentinas said: “Due to the strong storm that mainly affected the operation of Aeroparque, 100 flights have been canceled so far, and the same number have been delayed and rescheduled.”
The aircraft was damaged and its next scheduled flight was canceled and the plane grounded for repairs.
This is an example of the kind of danger on the side of the earth that travelers hardly think about – but which ground staff are extensively trained. The rare, fiery ways in which a plane fails in mid-flight may be more troubling to the imagination, but it is on the runway that most incidents and human errors occur.
Runway attack
A study by US transport authorities noted that runway incursions – when an aircraft, vehicle or person is wrongly on the runway – has increased over time (about 1,756 were reported at US airports in the past year).
Michele Robson, an aviation expert at Turning Left For Less, thinks a complex runway layout can increase the risk. Incidents involving vehicles are “very rare in this country,” she says, “but they happen more in other parts of the world.” Large airports like Chicago O’Hare are more difficult to navigate: vehicles could inadvertently collide with a taxiing plane, or a pilot could be lost.
Long-haul pilot Charlie Page says he’s always on the lookout for such violations. “We have to be so aware of all the potential hazards,” he says. “We are completely focused, always building a 3D picture of the area in our minds.”
In fact, an investigation by the Chicago Sun Times found that five airport staff members have been reprimanded for such intrusions since 2020. In one incident, a vehicle was driven into a “runway safety area”, remained there and a jet line Korean Air is “over flight”. Another employee was suspended after driving carelessly on the runway and causing a prohibited landing.
In both of these incidents, all passengers and crew members emerged unharmed. But Robson points out that an unfamiliar runway layout, and poor visibility in general, can lead to far more dangerous situations.
A consequential accident
Such incidents are now very rare, as a result of one particularly terrible incident. In 1977, a KLM flight began its flight at Tenerife airport in dense fog, while the Pam Am flight, unknown to the pilot, was still on the runway. The planes collided, killing 583 people. It was the deadliest non-terrorist aviation disaster in history.
As a result of the accident, a whole range of new procedures were introduced to assist air traffic controllers and pilots. Emphasis was placed on the use of English as the normal working language, and standard phrases, such as “hold position”, were introduced for the sake of clarity. Cockpit procedures were also tightened – there was some speculation that the crew on the KLM plane felt unable to challenge the highly respected pilot, who appeared to be taking off without clearance. Flight crew are now expressly trained to dispute decisions regardless of seniority.
A reduced visibility procedure, similar to the one in the Tenerife disaster, was also developed. “Things like pilots getting lost, or other vehicles on the runway, are now picked up by radar surface movement devices,” says Robson. “Even if there is poor visibility, a controller can see everything on what looks like a radar display. So if someone comes the wrong way, they don’t have to be looking out the window the whole time, it’s there on the screen.”
Another recent incident occurred at Stansted. A Ryanair plane, traveling from Luxembourg, collided with a ground vehicle while taxiing to the gate. Footage shows the ambulift – a mobility aid device used by disabled passengers – approaching the plane, before it stops and tries to reverse.
The action is clearly ill-judged. The top of the vehicle is clipped by the plane’s wing, apparently causing damage to the aircraft.
Due to the relative slow speed of the vehicles involved, incursions such as the one at Stansted are not a serious threat. Passengers should still wear seat belts, and the body of the plane is much more resilient than a ground vehicle. Weird incidents that are more harmless to social media, like the widely shared video of a JetBlue plane tilting backwards, may be alarming incidents of danger on the ground. In reality, however, the risk to passengers is very low.
Runway trips
The runway can be a more dangerous place, however, during incidents such as the one seen at Leeds Bradford airport last month, when a Tui plane “went off the runway” in heavy rain. Again, passengers managed to leave the plane unharmed.
Trips are a particular threat – when an aircraft looks off or overruns the runway surface. The International Air Transport Association declared them “the most frequent type of accident” in its 2022 Safety Report. Two years earlier, 24 deaths, 77 serious injuries and six cases of significant damage to the aircraft were attributed to trips. The risk to life is obviously a scary risk, but airlines are also very careful about their costs. Swiss consulting firm Safe-Runway GmbH estimates that the direct cost of runway trip events is around $4 billion per year.
Passengers – and the operator – were lucky that the Tui plane did not break down during the journey. Many such incidents resulted in serious injury and often extensive damage to the aircraft. In 2000, Southwest Airlines Flight 1455 overran the runway at Burbank airport due to wet weather. He careened through a perimeter wall, finally skidding to a stop outside a gas station. Luckily, everyone survived, but the aircraft was written off. It was the first major accident in the airline’s history.
Other trips had more kills. In 2020, a Pegasus Airlines flight overshot the runway while landing at Istanbul-Sabiha Gökçen International Airport during bad weather, and broke into several pieces. Three passengers were killed.
Airport mitigation
Still, aviation accidents in general are still rare, and are decreasing. Airports use well-known instruments, such as Skidometers, to measure runway friction and monitor water levels, which means weather conditions are closely tracked. And although it often seems dramatic, pilots are able to respond to any perceived danger on the ground right up to the moment of landing.
“If there’s an airplane or another vehicle on the runway, a pilot will abort the landing,” says Robson. “The same thing could happen if the runway surface was deemed unsafe. A pilot might even touch the wheels, before putting on full power and climbing back to a certain altitude because they are not happy with the conditions. Passengers can be alarmed by the sudden change, but it’s really a safety measure.”
And while you might want to start your vacation as soon as the tires touch the tarmac, security concerns remain until the plane has come to a complete stop. If the Stansted incident reveals anything, it’s that the airlines really mean it when they advise you to keep your seat belt on.
