Following two verified near mid-air collisions and more than 50 other safety incidents, the Federal Aviation Administration has ordered Centennial Airport (APA) near Denver to suspend simultaneous departures from its parallel runways. CBS Colorado obtained the FAA safety assessment and reported that the directive took effect without advance stakeholder consultation on October 1, with public confirmation published October 20. The restrictions have immediate operational consequences for one of America’s busiest general-aviation fields. Flight schools that depend on touch-and-go practice at APA say training capacity has dropped by up to 50 percent, pushing students to smaller outlying airports and increasing fuel burn. Local instructors warned that the sudden change disrupts syllabus timelines for international students facing visa-status clocks tied to flight hours. Centennial’s management criticized the FAA’s “highly unusual” lack of notice and is pressing to join a Safety Risk Management Panel later this month where longer-term mitigations will be discussed. Options include revised departure procedures, additional controller staffing and new runway incursion technology. For corporate aviation departments, the order may lengthen departure queues and complicate scheduling for Denver-area business trips. Companies operating time-critical flights should coordinate with fixed-base operators to secure departure slots and consider repositioning to Denver International or Rocky Mountain Metropolitan when practicable.
Source: CBS Colorado
