Runway Incursion: What It Is, How It Happens, and What It Means for Injured Passengers and Families

What a Runway Incursion Is

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the federal agency that defines and tracks runway incursions in the United States. Its runway incursion resources page defines a runway incursion as any occurrence at an airport involving the incorrect presence of an aircraft, vehicle or person on the protected area of a surface designated for the landing and takeoff of aircraft.

The FAA sorts these events into four severity categories:

• Category A is a serious incident in which a collision was narrowly avoided.
• Category B is an incident with a significant potential for collision.
• Category C is an incident with ample time and distance to avoid a collision.
• Category D meets the definition but carries little or no chance of collision.

The definition covers a safety event, not a crash. A plane that crosses a hold line without clearance on a quiet runway is an incursion even if nothing else happens. A collision means aircraft, vehicles or people actually make contact. Category A and B events carry the highest risk that an incursion becomes a collision, along with the injuries a collision can cause.

The difference matters for a family. If an official notice uses the word "incursion," it describes how the event began. It does not, by itself, say what caused it or who is responsible.

How the Official Incursion Type Points Toward Who Was Involved

The FAA tracks and reports incursions by type as well as by severity. The type describes whose action placed someone on the protected surface. The FAA uses three types:

• A Pilot Deviation (PD) is an action by a pilot that violates an FAA rule, such as crossing or entering a runway without a clearance.
• An Operational Incident (OI) is an action by an air traffic controller that results in less than the required separation between aircraft, or between an aircraft and an authorized vehicle, person or obstruction.
• A Vehicle/Pedestrian Deviation (V/PD) is any entry onto a runway by a vehicle or a pedestrian without authorization from air traffic control.

These labels are classifications, not legal findings. One event can also involve more than one type. A pilot may enter a runway while a controller has cleared another aircraft onto the same surface, and a ground vehicle may already be there.

The type still gives a useful first frame. A Pilot Deviation points toward the pilot and the operator. An Operational Incident points toward air traffic control, a federal function. A Vehicle/Pedestrian Deviation points toward whoever was driving or walking on the airfield and who employed them. Families trying to make sense of an official classification often start with this framework.

Who Shares the Runway — and Why It Matters to a Claim

Several different kinds of operations share an active runway, and each is governed in its own way.

Commercial air carriers, the scheduled airlines regulated under Part 121 of the FAA's rules, are one category. A charter (Part 135) operator is a company that flies passengers or cargo on demand, such as an air taxi, a private charter or an air ambulance, under a separate set of FAA rules. Our page on charter flight crashes covers that category in more depth. General aviation aircraft and their pilots make up a third group, including private owners, aircraft at flight school crashes and homebuilt aircraft like those discussed on our page on experimental aircraft crashes.

The airport authority is the public body or operator that runs the field. It has responsibilities for surface markings, signage, lighting and control of ground vehicles. Ground vehicle operators include airport employees, contractors and construction or maintenance crews working near runways. FAA air traffic control is a federal government function that issues the clearances that permit movement on and across runways.

These layers stay distinct. Federal aviation rules govern airspace and aircraft operations. The airport authority's duties form a separate layer. State tort law, the body of law that decides civil injury claims, governs most claims against parties who are not the federal government.

For an injured passenger or a family, this sorting has a practical consequence: which of these entities was involved shapes which rules apply, and whether a claim follows federal procedures or state law.

The Conditions That Can Lead to an Incursion — and Whose Responsibility Each Touches

The categories below are general contributing factors that runway safety work examines. None of them is a finding about any particular accident. In a specific event, only the official investigation can state what happened.

• Communication failures, where a clearance is misheard, misunderstood or incomplete, or a readback error goes uncorrected.
• Controller workload and staffing, which affect how many aircraft and vehicles one controller is tracking at once.
• Airport surface complexity, such as intersecting runways and confusing taxiway layouts, which is a question of design and signage.
• Inadequate or non-standard runway signage, lighting and markings.
• Pilot situational awareness and a pilot's familiarity with the layout of an airport's surface.
• Ground vehicle operator error or a lack of training.
• Limits or absence of airport surface detection equipment (ASDE), the radar and related systems that show controllers where aircraft and vehicles are on the ground.
• Low-visibility conditions such as night, fog or rain, which can make every other factor worse.

Each condition connects to someone's area of responsibility. A clearance belongs to the controller and the pilot. Signage and layout belong to the airport authority. A vehicle's movement belongs to its driver and employer. Investigators often find that more than one condition was present, which is why a single event can raise questions about several parties at once.

Injuries That Runway Incursion Collisions Cause

When an incursion becomes a collision, the forces involved can be severe. An aircraft on a runway may be traveling at or near takeoff or landing speed when it strikes another aircraft or a vehicle.

The injury categories associated with these events include blunt force trauma from impact, fire and smoke inhalation when fuel ignites, and structural crush injuries when the airframe is damaged around the people inside it. Some collisions are fatal. Survivors may face long-term disability and ongoing medical care that changes how they work and live.

The law recognizes categories of harm that a civil claim may address. In general terms, these can include medical expenses, lost income, pain and suffering, and loss of consortium, which is the loss of a spouse's or family member's companionship and support. When someone dies, a wrongful death claim is a civil claim that a deceased person's family or estate may bring for losses caused by the death. Wrongful death damages are their own category.

Damages rules differ from state to state. Which categories a state allows, who may bring a wrongful death claim, and whether limits apply all depend on that state's law and on the facts of the injury, the treatment and the losses. Nothing about an injury, however serious, shows by itself who is at fault.

What Investigators Look At — and Why It Matters to Your Case

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is the independent federal agency that investigates civil aviation accidents. A preliminary report is an early factual account, and it is not a finding of cause. A final report sets out the facts the investigation established. The probable cause is the NTSB's own statement of what it determined caused the accident, issued at the end. While an investigation is open, no probable cause exists yet.

In a runway incursion, the evidence investigators examine usually includes:

• The cockpit voice recorder (CVR), which records sound in the cockpit, and the flight data recorder (FDR), which records the aircraft's performance and control inputs.
• Air traffic control audio recordings and controller logs.
• Airport surface detection equipment radar data and any runway camera footage.
• Pilot certificates, training records and medical certificates.
• Airport inspection and maintenance records for signage, lighting and markings.
• Witness statements.

Much of this evidence is held by agencies, operators or the airport, and some can only be reached through legal process. Federal law sharply limits access to cockpit recordings. Under 49 U.S.C. § 1154(a), a party generally may not use discovery to obtain a cockpit recorder recording, or the parts of a transcript or still images the NTSB has not made public. A court may allow it after a private in camera review, under a protective order. Subsection (b) is direct: "No part of a report of the Board, related to an accident or an investigation of an accident, may be admitted into evidence or used in a civil action for damages resulting from a matter mentioned in the report."

So the NTSB's report shapes the factual picture, but a civil case has to prove its facts through other evidence. If you were hurt, or lost someone, the records that usually matter alongside the official ones include medical records and bills, photos and video, incident reports, travel and ticket records, and the names of witnesses.

Who May Bear Responsibility — and What the Facts Decide

Responsibility after a runway collision is a set of questions, and the facts answer them. For each party, the questions are whether it owed a duty of care, whether it breached that duty, whether the breach caused the harm, and what damages the law allows.

Pilots owe duties under FAA operating rules, including holding short of a runway and following clearances. Their operator, whether an airline, a charter company or a flight school, may also face questions about training and supervision. Airport authorities may face questions about surface design, markings, signage, lighting and control of ground vehicles. Ground vehicle operators and their employers may face claims under state tort law.

Air traffic controllers who work for a federal agency are government employees. Claims against the United States for their negligence proceed under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), the federal law that allows certain injury and death claims against the government, beginning at 28 U.S.C. § 2671 et seq. That section's definition of "Federal agency" does not include "any contractor with the United States." For that reason, who employed the person whose conduct is in question is itself one of the facts that matters.

Fault rules differ from state to state. Some states reduce a recovery by an injured person's share of fault. Others treat it differently. No single state's rule applies everywhere, and wrongful death rules vary in the same way.

Once the NTSB has published findings, families often want to know which parties' conduct is worth a closer look and which law applies to each. If you'd like to talk that through, you can request a case evaluation.

Why Claim Deadlines Differ Depending on Who Is Involved

No single national deadline applies after a runway collision. The timing depends on who the defendant is and which state's law governs.

For claims against the federal government, the FTCA adds a step before any lawsuit. Under 28 U.S.C. § 2675(a), an action generally cannot be started unless the claimant has first presented the claim to the appropriate federal agency and the agency has finally denied it in writing, sent by certified or registered mail. If the agency makes no final disposition within six months after the claim is filed, the claimant may treat that as a final denial at any time afterward. Under § 2675(b), a later suit generally cannot seek more than the amount presented to the agency. The exceptions are an increase based on newly discovered evidence or on intervening facts.

Under 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b), a tort claim against the United States is "forever barred unless it is presented in writing to the appropriate Federal agency within two years after such claim accrues or unless action is begun within six months after the date of mailing, by certified or registered mail, of notice of final denial of the claim." That period runs from accrual. The text does not tie it to the NTSB's schedule.

Claims against non-federal parties follow state limitation periods, which differ by state. Wrongful death periods also differ by state and can differ from injury periods. When a claim accrues, which state's law applies, and which deadlines govern a particular set of facts are questions an attorney can help identify.