DENVER — With the sound of landing planes roaring overhead and the bureaucratic fanfare of a bigwig ribbon cutting, Denver International Airport opened a new taxiway Tuesday.
The taxiway is designed to eliminate a "hotspot" where high aircraft traffic volume raised the risk of collision -- a growing concern at airports nationwide.
"This was our number one safety project for DEN," said airport CEO Phil Washington. "And I would go so far as to say in the national airspace, it’s probably the number one safety project for the FAA as well."
But DIA isn't the worst airport in the metro area for close calls -- which the industry dubs "runway incursions" when aircraft are in the wrong place on an active runway.
From January 2021 through May 2023, DIA reported 18 incursions, compared to 31 at Rocky Mountain Metro airport in Broomfield and 34 at Centennial Airport in the same timeframe, data from the FAA showed.
"It's a choreographed dance," 9NEWS aviation analyst Greg Feith said of airport ground operations, which he said professional pilots know how to handle.
The bigger problems arise at airports with varying levels of pilot expertise, he said. "It's a mix of professional pilots with novice pilots. You have general aviation pilots, don't have a lot of experience sometimes. You have a lot of flight training going on, so it's that mix that will create the issue," he said.
But not every incident is serious. "You have to keep a runway incursion in context," Feith said. The FAA rates them from A -- the most serious -- to D, an incident without immediate safety consequences.
Almost all of the incursions reported at DIA, Rocky Mountain and Centennial were rated C or D. However an incident last year at Pueblo's airport received an A rating because of a close call where one plane flew 15 feet over another.
The FAA has ordered 90 airports across the country to hold urgent runway safety meetings. In Colorado, the mandate includes Vail's Eagle County Airport.
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