Boston's Logan Airport may overhaul its runways with new technology and a revised layout to prevent collisions after a flurry of near misses involving commercial planes at one of America's busiest air hubs.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Massachusetts authorities said on Wednesday they were considering measures to prevent near misses on the ground after 16 incidents involving aircraft narrowly avoiding collisions in 2005.
The Massachusetts Port Authority has recommended building a new "taxiway" so planes that are preparing to take off or have just landed can circumvent the airport's runways instead of crossing them.
The FAA also plans to make Logan a "testing bed" for new technology to alleviate runway incursions and will add stronger surveillance radar. Boston could also receive runway status lights, akin to street traffic lamps, the FAA said.
Aviation experts have warned that rising jet traffic and complex signs at US airports could trigger more close calls following 326 runway incursions at US airports in 2004, including 26 considered seriously dangerous. That was up marginally from a total of 324 in 2003.
Incursions occur when an aircraft crosses or uses a runway without being cleared by controllers to do so, raising the risk of collisions with landing or departing planes.
The world's worst aviation incident was the result of an incursion. In 1977 a KLM Boeing 747 which had not been cleared for take-off sped down a runway in the Canary Islands in dense fog and collided with another jumbo jet, killing 583 people.
In June, two large jets came within 170 feet of each other at Logan, prompting authorities to investigate.
"We would like to make these changes happen as soon as possible," said Jim Peters, a spokesman for the FAA, adding that no fixed time had been set.
Logan, which has five intersecting runways connected by a complex web of taxiways, handles 420,000 departures and arrivals every year.
