Airport runway lights ‘not sufficient’

Press, 10 December 1983, Page 10

Airport runway lights ‘not sufficient’

NZPA-AP Madrid Spanish union and airline officials yesterday cited the lack of ground radar and multicoloured warning lights as main factors in the fiery collision of two airliners at Barajas Airport, Madrid, on Wednesday that left more than 90 dead.

All 42 people aboard an Aviacion Comercio (Aviaco) DC9 were killed and 50 more aboard an Iberia Boeing 727 perished in the collision on a runway of the fogbound airport. A ninetythird person, a stewardess, was missing and presumed dead. Government officials joined about 500 people at a funeral Mass for the victims at Barajas Airport yesterday. The airport later reopened to traffic, but passengers on outbound Iberia flights did not. receive their usual Spanish newspapers. Iberia said that it wanted to avoid upsetting travellers with stories and photos of the collision.

The president of the Spanish Air Traffic Controllers’ Association, Mr Mariano Hernandez, said that the runway signal lights of the

airport were not sufficient for conditions of heavy fog.

“We’re not just starting to criticise these conditions now. We’ve been complaining about them for a long time.”

Jose Antonio Silva, a pilot and member of the Aviaco board, said that the collision might not have occurred if the runways had a signal system of multicoloured lights, like many large airports. Peter Kennedy, a British Civil Aviation Authority spokesman, said in London that a higher standard of fog safety equipment would have helped to prevent the accident. Surface radar could have warned controllers in the tower that the planes had been on a collision course, he said.

“Had the (Madrid) runway been equipped with warning lights and the pilot of the taxi-ing plane (the DC9) seen them, his plane might not have crossed into the active runway,” Mr Kennedy said. Alejandro Barrio, a member of the Union of Spanish Aviation Pilots, also said that lack of proper signals

was a determining factor. “In 1977, following the collision in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, we asked the central administration to provide our major airports with modern radar systems. They said that would be done in one year. We are still waiting.” (Two jumbo jets collided on the ground in heavy fog at the Canary Islands airport in March, 1977, killing 582 people in aviation history’s worst crash.) Less than two weeks ago, on November 27, 181 people were killed when a Colombian jumbo jet crashed as it approached Barajas. On Wednesday the pilot of the Iberia jet tried to speed up his take-off when he realised the Aviaco DC9 was coming at him. Aviation experts said that the 727 was travelling about 270km/h and had gone about 1000 metres north along the runway when it hit the DC9, which had strayed into its path in the fog.

The Spanish Transport Minister, Mr Enrique Baron, and the Director of Airports, Mr Ignacio Garcia de la Rasilla, insisted that Barajas was safe.