The toolkit, a product of the efforts of the Runway Safety Initiative members and a joint effort of FSF and the International Air Transport Association (IATA), provides an in depth analysis of runway excursion accident data, a compilation of significant risk factors, and provides recommendations for operators, pilots, airports, Air Traffic Management, Air Traffic Controllers and regulators to assist in addressing this challenge.
After reviewing all areas of runway safety over the past 14 years, the RSI group focused on runway excursions as they discovered that 97% of runway accidents were caused by excursions. They also found that over the past 14 years, there had been almost 30 excursions per year for commercial aircraft (over 25% of all accidents). The study also noted that although the percentage of excursions that included fatalities was low, the sheer number of excursions still meant that there were a high number of fatalities. Independent of the FSF effort, IATA’s Safety Group had identified runway excursions as a significant safety challenge to address.
The final report of the Foundation’s RSI effort, titled “Reducing the Risk of Runway Excursions”, was released in June of 2009 and provides data on runway accidents, notes the high risk areas, and provides interventions. This report is included, along with other valuable information and presentations, in the Runway Excursion Risk Reduction Toolkit.