Practical Travel Safety Issues - Skies Are Now So Safe on U.S. Flights That Experts Turn Focus to 'Surface Threats'

The New Frontier in Air Safety (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203686204577113693683788110.html?m od=ITP_pageone_1)

As a result, reducing dangers on the ground is essential to continuing safety improvements. "We've learned how to operate planes very, very well in the air," said Richard Healing, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board. Now, "runway events are much more likely to pose a major hazard than in-flight problems," he said.

While our discussions of security and safety often focus on people and terrorism, the aspect of flight safety that many novices may think about is actually greatly improved. According to this Wall Street Journal article our greatest danger is on the ground.

Link at top may be behind a Pay Wall. Try this Google search result if it does not work. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203686204577113693683788110.html)

Always thinking of some conspiracy, always thought Bush should have planted some evidence of weapons of mass destruction, and that the board of the companies selling the scanners should have had attempted terrorists "discovered" using their equipment.

Anyway, Homeland security is after all those that stopped flying because of the added hassels. Enjoy.

Wait til they start going after drivers.

This is an FAA program, NOT DHS, launched some years back to reduce incidents on the tarmac. If you look on www.airnav.com at the airport diagrams of runways, taxiways, etc., you'll find that some of the busier airports are quite complex. Use of the word "threat" is a bit misleading given that many will infer that terrorism is implied. So far, I don't think there have been any reports of terrorists altering runway and taxiway signage in an effort to confuse pilots and annoy airport controllers. ;)

This is an FAA program, NOT DHS, launched some years back to reduce incidents on the tarmac. If you look on www.airnav.com at the airport diagrams of runways, taxiways, etc., you'll find that some of the busier airports are quite complex. Use of the word "threat" is a bit misleading given that many will infer that terrorism is implied. So far, I don't think there have been any reports of terrorists altering runway and taxiway signage in an effort to confuse pilots and annoy airport controllers. ;)

From the article:

These "surface threats," to use the industry lingo, include ramp collisions, pilots who blunder onto the wrong runway—potentially into the path of a speeding jet—and planes running off wet or snowy airstrips. Airline pilots have long said that maneuvering big planes around complex and bustling airports, often at night or with poor visibility, is one of the most challenging parts of their jobs.

The word "threat" is clearly referred to as industry lingo and is never used to refer to terrorist threats but is used to refer to exactly the difficulties you mention.

This forum is Travel Safety/Security and this article clearly addresses an aspect of aviation safety.

not you ink :) OP seemed to think otherwise and that these surface threats would involve DHS going after other modes of transport (i.e."drivers"), I had no problem reading the linked article (no pay wall encountered). The irony is that this article is actually about real aviation safety and how in fact the 'skies' are safer than ever due to better situational awareness and other technological advances in aeronautical science. This should be welcome news to all :) TSA/DHS has absolutely nothing to do with this sort of safety record. :rolleyes: