From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Airport Terminal Area Safety Description: We take a look at FAA's role in the safety of our nation's airport terminals. Related GAO Work: GAO-19-639, Aviation Safety: Opportunities Exist for FAA to Improve Airport Terminal Area Safety Efforts Released: September 2019 [ Background Music ] [ Heather Krause: ] It's important that they start to look at the potential risks -- really prevent those accidents from occurring. [ Matt Oldham: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm Matt Oldham. The U.S. has one of the safest airport systems in the world, but incidents and near misses at and around our terminal areas still occur. As a matter of fact, the number of reported terminal area incidents has been increasing. Heather Krause is a Physical Infrastructure director at GAO, and she'll be talking about her report on airport terminal area safety. Thank you for joining me, Heather. [ Heather Krause: ] Thank you. [ Matt Oldham: ] So, my first question is a selfish one: I'm already an anxious flier, are you going to give me any new reasons to fear flying? [ Heather Krause: ] I think as you mentioned in the introduction, Matt, you know, the U.S. system is one of the safest in the world, but there are still opportunities for improvements as incidents continue to occur. What we did in this work is really look at the airport terminal area. If you're at an airport and look out the window or are flying and look out your -- the cabin window, you'll see there's a lot of activity in the area, so it's -- it includes both where aircraft are taking off, landing, taxiing around, as well as what is sometimes called the ramp area -- so, that's where you're going to have airport and airline officials, so you're going to have vehicles, baggage handlers, fuel trucks. So there's a lot of activity and all these parties really need to work together to ensure safety of that area of the airport. [ Matt Oldham: ] And the report looked at incidents. Could you talk a little bit about what falls under the category of incidents? [ Heather Krause: ] Incidents can occur both in what is called the movement and non-movement areas, so you can have things such as runway incursions -- so that's where an incident might occur where you have an aircraft, vehicle, or person crossing a runway or entering a runway when they weren't authorized to do so. Another type of incident would be runway excursions -- so that's going to be where an aircraft veers off to the side or overruns the end of a runway. There's also an incident type called wrong surface area, and those occur when an aircraft lands, departs, or tries to land or depart on a wrong runway or taxiway. And then the other area where incidents can occur is in the ramp area, so that's where you have aircraft vehicles and people, you know, moving around in the -- in the ramp area and maybe causing potential damage to aircraft or the equipment near the airport. [ Matt Oldham: ] So, then, do we know if the actual number of incidents have been increasing or just the number of reports of incidents have been increasing? Or is there even a difference? [ Heather Krause: ] FAA has a number of different ways that they're collecting data on incidents, and I think what our report was finding is that there is some opportunities for them to improve on the data that they're collecting and assessing to -- potential risks. [ Matt Oldham: ] Were there any examples or categories of these incidents that you found that FAA was not doing, for lack of a better term, the best possible job they could be doing in counting? [ Heather Krause: ] So, we looked at the excursion data. What we found is, you know, they -- they in the last few years have started collecting additional data on excursions, but there are some opportunities that for them to sort of, make that data even better, in terms of looking for potential duplicates so that they have the best data as they assess the risks. [ Background Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] So, it sounds like the FAA is keeping an eye on incidents in our airport terminal areas, but there's some room for improvement on how they count the incidents. So, Heather, why is getting good data -- why is that important for the FAA? [ Heather Krause: ] It's important because accidents are really rare in the system and so it's important that they start to look at the potential risks and -- and determine whether there are any actions they need to take to mitigate risks and really prevent those accidents for -- from occurring. [ Matt Oldham: ] So, did this report have any recommendations for the FAA? [ Heather Krause: ] We identified five recommendations from the FAA, they include areas for -- as we've talked about, improving the data, but also sharing information both within FAA, as well as between FAA and the airports, and looking at how they might assess the effectiveness of some of the efforts they have to improve terminal area safety. [ Matt Oldham: ] Last question, what's the bottom line of this report? [ Heather Krause: ] FAA is overseeing one of the safest systems in the world -- there are opportunities for them to improve both the data that they're collecting and analyzing, as well as sharing information with the different parties. These types of steps, we believe, will really enhance their safety efforts in the airport terminal area. [ Matt Oldham: ] Heather Krause was talking about a GAO report looking at how the FAA collects data on, and assesses the risks for, some types of incidents in airport terminal areas. Thank you for your time, Heather. [ Heather Krause: ] Thank you. [ Background Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. To hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts. For more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, visit us at gao.gov.