• Home
• Best Practice Manual
• Case Studies
• Glossary

• Operational Safety
  • Safety Responsibility
  • Safety Considerations
  • Safety Areas
  • Construction Marking and Lighting
  • Foreign Object Damage (FOD)
  • Disorientation
• Security
  • Terminology
  • Responsibilities and Actions
• Handwork
  • Placement by Shovel
  • Lute and Rake Use
• Work around Fillets, Light Fixtures, and Utilities
  • Fillets
  • Light Fixtures
  • Utilities
• Markings
  • Paint Type
    • Waterbourne
    • Epoxy
    • Methyl Methacrylate (MMA)
    • Solvent-Based
  • Retroreflectivity
  • Marking Application
  • Temporary Markings
  • Marking Removal
• Off Peak Construction
  • Project Planning
    • Cost Considerations and Staging
    • Work Hours and Liquidated Damages
    • Roughtness Considerations
  • Construction Practices
    • Weather
    • Lighting
    • Surface Preparation
    • Production and Transport
    • Placement and Compaction
    • Transitions and Cleanup
• Acknowledgements

Safety Considerations

Paver and roller with orange and white checkered flags. These are required on all vehicles operating in the Air Operations Area (AOA) during daylight hours.

© 2002 Steve Muench

Flags on equipment

Night paving on an airport taxiway showing the flashing amber light required of all paving equipment when operating within the Air Operation Area (AOA).

© 2007 Steve Muench

Flashing amber light on a paver

Vehicles

The AOA is primarily a place for aircraft movement. Vehicles and construction equipment movement must be closely controlled and yield to aircraft at all times.

Vehicle considerations include:

• Vehicle plan. A formal plan that delineates rules, regulations, markings, penalties, communication requirements, and movement control associated with construction.
• Vehicle parking. Parking areas should be selected carefully to minimize the hazard to aircraft. This includes never parking on runways or taxiways (even ones that are closed), never parking in runway safety areas and never obstructing the air traffic control tower’s (ATCT) line of sight to an active runway or taxiway.
• Communication with the ATCT. Construction vehicles should maintain radio contact with the ATCT when operating near taxiways and runways. Escort drivers should even be familiar with ATCT light signals in the event of radio failure. The FAA puts out a placard as a quick reference guide to airport signs and markings that can help.
• Crossing active movement areas. When vehicles have to cross active movement areas (runways and taxiways) they must be controlled by radio contact with the ATCT, escorts, flaggers or signal lights. This means contractors need to allocate personnel as crossing guards for these areas.
• Vehicle markings. All vehicles operating within the AOA are required to display an orange and white checkered flag during the daytime (see Image) and a flashing amber light at night (see Image). For the contractor, this means obtaining flags and lights and fitting existing equipment, including trucks, to display them.

Notification

A large part of operational safety is ensuring everyone is kept current on construction timing, location, progress and resulting changes in airport operations. This is done officially with a Notice to Airmen (NOTAMS), a legal authoritative document used to alert everyone who may use the airport about the construction, and any operational constraints associated with the construction. A NOTAMS is defined by Annex 15 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation as:

“A notice distributed by means of telecommunication containing information concerning the establishment, condition or change in any aeronautical facility, service, procedure or hazard the timely knowledge of which is essential to personnel concerned with flight operations.”

The implication to airport HMA paving is that a spur-of-the-moment work zone change cannot be done because changing the workzone significantly would necessitate a new NOTAMS.