The Federal Aviation Administration will dramatically overhaul its rules and procedures for airplanes taking off in snowy and icy weather. Though the FAA is to be commended for this initiative, to be in place by next winter, it is long and tragically overdue.
The agency, frequently criticized as being too slow and cumbersome in its rule-making, has been under assault for years by the National Transportation Safety Board and members of Congress for not moving aggressively to establish stricter rules for plane de-icing and winter takeoffs.
It is moving now after a near-disaster, the December crash-landing on takeoff of a plane in Sweden in which all 129 people aboard survived, and an actual disaster, the March crash, also on takeoff, at New York`s La Guardia Airport in which 27 people were killed. In both cases, icing of the planes`
wings is suspected as the primary cause.
After the crash in Sweden, the FAA ordered new de-icing procedures for two commonly used planes, one of which was involved in the crash and both of which have been considered more susceptible to icing. After the New York crash, it decided to rewrite the book for all planes in the United States.
The exact scope of these new rules will be worked out with the airlines, aircraft manufacturers and safety experts. But the essential feature will be to provide clearer guidelines for pilots to follow during icing conditions, a change the pilots welcome. They carry too much burden and get too little help under the current system, in which they make visual inspections of the wings from the cockpit and must make critical decisions on de-icing and when to commit to takeoff.
It is expected that airline workers will be required to touch the wings to detect ice, and that there will be better training of crews to identify dangerous conditions. Other changes may include alterations in aircraft design, use of stronger de-icing fluids, de-icing on the runway instead of at the gate, using heated engine air to keep wings ice-free and setting time limits in which planes must take off after de-icing or be de-iced again.
These changes may be costly. Airports, for example, may have to install de-icing equipment on runways, and airlines may have to de-ice more often. They almost certainly could lead to more delays, no small consideration at O`Hare and Midway during a typical Chicago winter. But as with any issue involving air safety, cost and inconvenience must be secondary.
