Federal aviation officials have warned the city of Los Angeles to fix safety problems with its airport runways, the Wall Street Journal reports. Federal Aviation Administration chief Randy Babbitt sent a letter to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, saying “The status quo is not good enough for the FAA … and the city of Los Angeles should not view it as good enough for the traveling public,” according to the Journal. The letter accompanied a report showing that safety incidents at LAX were high compared to other airports.
From the Journal:
The FAA’s communication revealed that since early March, there have been two instances of so-called runway incursions at LAX, as the airport is called, including a Boeing 747 whose pilots failed to get their jumbo jet to completely exit one of northern runways before an aircraft landing behind the plane touched down on the same runway. Nobody was hurt in that incident, or other recent runway incidents at LAX.
The FAA’s report, however, argues that between 2000 and 2009, the frequency of runway safety incidents at LAX was almost twice as high as the rates at Dallas/Forth Worth international Airport and Atlanta’s international airport.
