The parallel runways on Los Angeles International Airport’s north airfield should not be separated for the sake of safety, according to a long-anticipated report released Friday by an academic panel and NASA Ames Research Center.
The finding is considered a victory for airport-area residents and business owners in Westchester and Playa del Rey, who feared that part of their community be demolished if LAX moved one of the runways 340 feet north.
The airport commission ordered up the $1.4 million study in May 2008 to determine whether the north airfield’s two parallel runways should be separated to make room for a centerline taxiway, similar to a $333 million project completed nearly two years ago at the airport’s south airfield. For now, airplanes maneuvering on LAX’s north airfield must use paths that crisscross the middle of the two parallel runways, which are separated by 700 feet with no centerline taxiway.
The Federal Aviation Administration has said for several years that LAX’s northern runways should be separated as a way to reduce the number of near-miss collisions between departing and arriving jetliners.
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