(CNN) — The Federal Aviation Administration told airlines Wednesday to step up vigilance at airports after a series of close calls on or near runways.
The agency published an “aviation safety call to action,” urging carriers to “reinforce adherence to published processes and procedures.”
“Operators should evaluate information collected through their safety management processes, identify hazards, increase and improve safety communications with employees and enact mitigations,” the safety alert says.
While flying remains an incredibly safe way to travel, the bulletin recommends “areas of focus” highlighted by recent events, including: using internal communication processes to “highlight … existing issues;” reinforcing rules, such as checklists and Air Traffic Control instructions; ensuring pilots and flight attendants understand what a “sterile flight deck” means, including the risks of extraneous communication; and reviewing runway safety protocols.
The bulletin follows by a week an emergency FAA safety summit that brought together regulators and industry groups after at least six high-profile runway incursions were reported at large US airports since the start of this year.
In its opening remarks, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg cited an “uptick” in aviation incidents and called on participants to help find the “root causes” of the problem.
“We are particularly concerned because we have seen an uptick in serious close calls,” he said at the event in McLean, Virginia.
The FAA safety summit was the first of its kind since 2009 and kicked off a sweeping safety review the agency is conducting in the wake of the runway incursions.
“These recent incidents must serve as a wake-up call for every single one of us, before something more catastrophic occurs, before lives are lost,” National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy told government and industry leaders gathered for it.
Still, commercial plane crashes are very rare, with approximately 45,000 flights typically completed each day in the US, all without fatality. That’s a number that continues to rise following a slowdown of commercial flights at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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