Midway will install safety system Crushable concrete OK'd for ends of runways.(News)

0 Comments | Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL), April, 2006 | by Ryan, Joseph

Byline: Joseph Ryan Daily Herald Staff Writer Midway International Airport is taking its first step in decades to improve safety at the end of its unusually constricted runways - a significant factor in December's deadly crash. Chicago officials are asking the Federal Aviation Administration for cash and guidance in installing beds of crushable concrete at the ends of its two runways.

The beds cushion a jet's overrun and are aimed at stopping it from running into nearby busy streets. During a heavy snowstorm the night of Dec. 8, a Southwest Airlines jet overran the runway at the tight city airport, plowing into two cars on the busy street and killing 6-year-old Joshua Woods of Indiana. Slick runways, a briefly inoperable braking mechanism on the plane...