Pilots: Flawed test could be catastrophic
A battle over the proposed extension of Wellington Airport’s runway hit the Court of Appeal yesterday, over what is a ‘‘practicable’’ safety zone.
The New Zealand Airline Pilots Association (NZALPA) is seeking a declaratory judgment on the meaning of Civil Aviation Authority rules on Wellington Airport’s runway end safety zone.
The airport is proposing to extend the runway by 355 metres south into Cook Strait, in order to enable non-stop long-haul flights into the capital.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has indicated if the project goes ahead, the existing safety arrangements will be adequate.
The union, which represents New Zealand’s commercial pilots, maintains the director of the CAA made an error in accepting that the 90-metre runway end safety zone was adequate, arguing it should be 240 metres.
Alternatively, the union is seeking for the airport to introduce an arresting system at the end of the runway to stop a plane which overran the runway.
Its argument was rejected in the High Court, and the union was ordered to pay towards the airport’s legal costs.
While international aviation rules require a runway end safety zone of at least 90m, it is recommended that it be 240m wherever practicable, and shorter distances must be approved by the regulator.
Hugh Rennie, QC, representing the union, said the rules over safety zones were based on global standards, which were not affected either by the frequency of services, or the length of the runway.
The cost-benefit approach used by the director of the CAA was flawed, because the risks of a plane running off the end of the runway were inevitably low; however, when it did occur it was likely to be catastrophic, he said.
While the airport was ‘‘perfectly capable’’ of extending the length of the runway further to allow a longer runway end safety zone, it had opted not to do so on the basis of cost, which introduced an economic component to the practicability test.
Francis Cooke, QC, representing the CAA, said asking what was practicable was not the same as asking what was possible.
The test was a value-laden judgment, and it was obvious that considerations of cost would form part of that.
The CAA had already approved the existing runway end safety zone at Wellington Airport, Cooke said. ‘‘The rule hasn’t changed. The extension doesn’t affect the question.’’