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This Information for Operators (InFO) message announces important new ATC procedures and phraseology to improve runway safety, effective Feb. 5, 2007, and recommends pertinent safe practices for pilots.

Runway safety continues to be one of the most important safety challenges confronting the commercial aviation industry and the FAA. Because of a recent rise in TIPH events, the FAA convened a Safety Risk Management Panel to analyze accident and incident data, and to make recommendations for change. Among the outcomes of the Panel's work are revised ATC procedures and recommended safe practices for pilots, addressed below.

Key points include the following --

1. ATC will normally withhold landing clearances on a runway while another aircraft is holding on the same runway.

2. ATC will issue traffic advisories to aircraft holding in position and to aircraft holding, departing, or arriving on an intersecting runway.

3. When cleared to "taxi into position and hold" a pilot should anticipate an imminent takeoff clearance. A pilot should ask ATC about any unexplained delay in receiving that clearance.

4. When holding short and when holding in position a pilot should be especially attentive to all radio transmissions from ATC, as well as acknowledgments from other aircraft.

More detailed Guidance for Pilots can be accessed at the following FAA public website: Runway Safety. (http://www.faa.gov/runwaysafety/cockpit.cfm) (Under "Information for" click on "Pilots.")

Directors of safety, directors of operations, fractional ownership program managers, trainers, and pilots should be familiar with the improved ATC procedures and phraseology effective February 5, 2007. They should work together to the extent necessary to address TIPH, as revised, in the manuals and training programs used by pilots, and to apply the practices contained in Taxi into Position and Hold (TIPH): Guidance for Pilots (found at the aforementioned URL) in daily operations.