Updating Runways: Residents Told of Improvement Project

Massport officials have briefed residents on the Boston Logan International Airport Runway Safety Area (RSA) Improvements Project.

Massport is planning to begin a final RSA project on the smallest of its runway, 15L/33R, used primarily for smaller general aviation aircraft.

Massport’s Flavio Leo said the plan is to move the runway 200 feet east but the shift would not encroach on wetlands and would remain on Massport property.

The RSA projects are mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) with a deadline of 2015 for Massport to be in compliance.

Leo explained that RSAs are safety improvements that do not extend runways or have any effect on normal runway operations, runway capacity, or types of aircraft that can use the runways. Leo said Massport is required to enhance the RSAs, to the extent feasible, to be consistent with current FAA airport design criteria, and to enhance rescue access in the event of an emergency.

Typical RSAs at the end of a runway  are level areas 1,000 feet long by 500 feet wide but may be shorter in length if an Engineered Materials Arresting System (EMAS) is installed at the runway end, a kind of gravel intended to slow down the plane’s forward motion.

Runway 33L, Logan’s longest runway is 10,081-foot runway and already has a 190-foot safety area, but that was extended to meet the requirements set by the FAA.

Massport extended the RSA on Runway 33L by 600 feet and not the 1,000 feet usually required by the FAA because of the EMAS the Port Authority plans to use at the end of the runway. This reduced harbor intrusion by 400 feet.

On Runway 22R, Massport simply enhanced the current RSA with an inclined safety area.

The FAA requires airports to provide a safety area at runway ends and on the sides of a runway to reduce the  risk of damage to aircraft in the event of an unintentional “excursion” from the runway in an emergency  situation. An excursion from the runway can include an overrun (an arriving aircraft fails to stop before the  end of the runway), an undershoot (an aircraft arriving on a runway touches down before the start of the paved  runway surface), or a veer-off to one side of a runway.

On January 23, 1982, World Airways Flight 30 from Newark to Boston made a non-precision instrument approach to Runway 33L/15R and touched down 2,800 feet past the displaced threshold on an icy runway. When the crew sensed that the DC-10 couldn’t be stopped on the remaining runway, they steered the DC-10 off the side of the runway to avoid the approach light pier, and slid into the shallow water of the Boston Harbor. The nose section separated as the DC-10 came to rest 250 feet past the runway end, 110 feet left of the extended centerline. Two passengers, a father and son, were never found and are presumed to have been swept out to sea.

Since the accident, Massport has been working hard to meet federal requirements for safety areas at the ends of its runways.

Leo said construction on the project would begin in the summer.