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A Boeing 737 that hydroplaned off a runway in 2019 in Jacksonville, Florida, which, along with 11 other wet-runway overrun accidents and incidents, has triggered an event that may affect access to some of the shorter field airports you use.
The NTSB issued three safety recommendations to the FAA on Tuesday that aim to improve the way runway conditions are assessed during the rain. It claims that the current assessment system increases the risk of a runway overrun.
The FAA uses its runway condition assessment matrix (RCAM) to calculate landing distances on wet runways. The bureau first recommends that the FAA update the RCAM to account for the lack of friction on the runway during heavy rain. The NTSB also recommends that the FAA add more rainfall intensity descriptors to aviation weather reports to identify intense rainfall that exceeds the current heavy rain threshold of 0.3 inches per hour. It claims that current descriptors in aviation weather reports are unable to properly identify the heaviest rainfall possible at airports, which limits a flight crew's ability to assess the runway and landing distance.
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Pilots, owners and operators should stay current on how runway safety factors and landing-distance assessments are calculated. If these recommendations are adopted, landing during heavy rain will likely require longer landing-distance margins. Operators may also need to learn new rainfall descriptors when assessing runway safety and deciding whether a landing is advisable.
The impact will be most important on shorter, ungrooved, or poorly maintained runways. The recommendations could also change which airports are legally usable in wet-weather operations, affecting where an aircraft can safely operate and how its limitations are viewed at resale.
Anyone considering a turboprop or jet with short certified landing-distance numbers should factor this in before buying. The key question is not just what the aircraft can do on paper, but where and when it can realistically operate.