What’s Going To Be Done About Newark Airport’s Tricky Runway 29?

A few days ago, we saw a United Boeing 767 hit a truck and light pole on the New Jersey Turnpike while on final approach to runway 29 at Newark Airport (EWR). Fortunately no one was seriously injured, so hopefully there’s a lesson to be learned here, to prevent something similar in the future. Along those lines…

Newark Airport’s runway 29 is sort of a problem

There’s quite a bit of discussion going on regarding what could cause an accident like this to happen, because suffice it to say, commercial aircraft shouldn’t be clipping cars on the interstate.

While the above footage (from Sunday’s incident) is obviously the wildest, the reality is that there have been quite a few very low approach landing videos from this runway over time.

What’s going on here? Well, runway 29 is used as needed for landings based on the winds. Here’s the issue:

• The runway is only 6,725 feet long, and for wide body aircraft, that’s very close to the minimum runway length they need; this means the room for error is limited, so pilots are going to try to land toward the beginning of the touchdown zone
• It seems utterly moronic to have an elevated interstate right at the edge of such a short runway, for obvious reasons (see all of the above videos!)
• There’s no ILS approach for runway 29, but just a series of RNAV approaches that go as low as 490 feet, at which point it becomes a visual segment

When you add in all of these factors, plus you see the above videos, it’s not difficult to think “oh, that could end very badly.” The United pilots and truck driver got really lucky here, as I see it. If the plane had instead been just feet lower, and had impacted that perimeter wall, I imagine this could’ve ended much worse.

Is there a practical solution to this runway issue?

Newark Airport is already known for constantly being congested, so any additional restrictions on runways will complicate things further. But of course safety is paramount, and can’t be overlooked in the name of operational efficiency.

It’s not that runway 29 needs to be shut down, but maybe investigators should look into whether restrictions should at least be placed on wide bodies landing there. Yes, pilots manage to safely land here day in and day out, but the safety margins just might not be there.

I’ve seen some people suggest that this portion of the interstate should simply be closed, but I don’t view that as a reasonable or practical solution.

Bottom line

On Sunday, a United Boeing 767 clipped a truck and light pole while on approach to Newark Airport’s runway 29. While that absolutely shouldn’t happen, when you look at the circumstances, you can kind of see what might’ve contributed to this.

Runway 29 is rather short (especially for wide body aircraft), and there’s an elevated interstate right at the approach end of it. When you consider that this is a visual approach, this all just seems rather risky. Also, in terms of plane spotting, the New Jersey Turnpike shouldn’t feel like Maho Beach, in my opinion.

Do you think we’ll see any new rules related to Newark’s runway 29? Or do you think this incident will be forgotten in a week?