ICAO and the Runway Safety Programme Partners have been working together to minimize and mitigate the risks of runway incursions, runway excursions and other events linked to Runway Safety.
The Runway Safety Programme promotes the establishment of Runway Safety Teams at airports as an effective means to reduce runway related accidents and incidents. The Runway Safety Go-Team is a voluntary multi-disciplinary assistance visit to an airport performed by an ad-hoc group of experts. The priority to address this category of accidents is clearly defined in ICAO Global Aviation Safety Plan and European Regional Aviation Safety Plan (EUR RASP). The Global Runway Safety Action Plan was developed in collaboration with the Runway Safety Programme Partners and is linked to the ICAO Global Aviation Safety Plan. The current edition of the Global Aviation Safety Plan (GASP) identifies runway safety as a global safety priority.
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Since 2016, when the deployment of Runway Safety Go-Teams was defined as the regional Safety Enhancement Initiative, the ICAO EUR/NAT office supported six Go-Teams missions. This work was performed within the framework of the ICAO EUR/NAT Technical Assistance project 16003 "RUNWAY SAFETY GO-TEAM MISSIONS" and with the support of donor States (France, Russia, Turkey) and international and regional organizations (ACI, CANSO Europe, EUROCONTROL, FAA, IATA, IFALPA) which provided their experts to ensure multidisciplinary and multicultural approach.
Recently, the ICAO EUR/NAT Office organized a Runway Safety Go-Team mission to Rabat, Morocco. This mission, conducted from 18 to 20 June 2019, was another step towards reaching the regional goal on establishing and improving of Runway Safety Team performance for all EUR/NAT international aerodromes. The Go-Team mission started with a workshop attended by 34 participants from Moroccan Civil Aviation Authorities, airports, air operators, air navigation service providers, ground handlers, civil and military. The work was followed by practical exercises and resulted in a number of recommendations for further implementation given to the Regulator and service providers.
ICAO EUR/NAT Office is committed to continue this work to improve safety in the region and to ensure that flying will become even safer. There are three more Runway Safety Go-Teams expected to be deployed by the end of 2019 in the EUR/NAT Regions.
