US FAA funds system to prevent accidents involving runaway airplanes

By David Shepardson

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) -The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday touted the reopening of a runway at Philadelphia International Airport through the installation of a system to stop a runaway airplane.

The FAA awarded $8.5 million last year for the airport's first Engineered Material Arresting System, which is a series of 2,000 tiles designed to stop an overrunning aircraft traveling at speeds of up to 70 knots. The system uses crushable material installed, which is compressed by the airplane's landing gear.

"This process in essence, it decelerates and safety stops the aircraft," Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker said at a press event on Tuesday.

There are 117 systems installed at over 60 airports in the United States and are used in places where there is limited excess land beyond runways. Philadelphia is the 21st busiest U.S. airport handling 31 million passengers last year with American Airlines accounting for about two-thirds of traffic.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said the system will allow the 5,000-foot long runway to be used for business jets and smaller commercial aircraft and ensure the runway meets agency standards and help increase capacity. "This is just an absolute win win win," Bedford said. "If there is a rejected takeoff we now have the confidence that the arrestor system will ensure passenger and crew safety."

The project included demolition of a service road, installation of utilities and storm water management measures, ground settlement monitoring.

Bedford said the system is not cheap. "It's an expensive upgrade but it takes essentially unusable capacity and adds incremental capacity,"

A crash of a Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 in South Korea in December killed 179 after it belly-landed and skidded off the end of the runway at Muan International Airport, erupting in a fireball as it slammed into a wall. Questions have been raised about why there was not a system in place to prevent planes overrunning the runway from striking the wall.

(Reporting by David Shepardson, Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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