NASA · Aviation Safety Reporting System
Pilot reported a runway excursion during landing at BOI due to ambiguous lead-off runway and taxiway edge lighting configuration.
What is ASRS?
The Aviation Safety Reporting System is NASA's voluntary, confidential, non- punitive incident-reporting system, established 1976. Pilots, controllers, dispatchers, and maintenance technicians file reports describing safety- relevant events. NASA de-identifies every report before adding it to the public database. Reports are not investigated by NASA, the FAA, or the NTSB — they represent the reporter's perspective.
Pilot narrative
Verbatim from the de-identified NASA record. First-person account by the
reporter. NASA strips identifying details (names, company, specific time);
anonymization placeholders are ZZZ,
X, Y.
I was cleared to land on 10R and planned to exit at the first available taxiway (H) which was within the landing performance data but required accurate, prompt control to do so. I successfully landed and slowed to normal exit speed, acquired what I thought was the lead-off line for H, and the taxiway edge lights on the far side of the lead-off line. What I didn't perceive was that the lead-off line had been blacked out recently as H had been moved during construction. Given the poor ambient lighting (even accounting for the excellent forward lighting from the landing lights), there was no immediate visual difference between the runway surface and the transition to the gravel surface and as the airplane departed the runway, the extra drag of the gravel and ~4" of underlying mud brought the airplane to a stop. After realizing what had happened and that I wasn't going to be able to taxi further, I coordinated with Tower, was instructed to switch to Ground and asked for a tow and passenger transport, then shut down the engine. Everything but the runway exit went as planned. I followed aircraft procedures, but departed from my usual night time post-landing technique of acquiring the lead-off line, then verifying the taxiway signage and seeing the lead-off goes between the edge lights. The erroneous lead-off line combined with the adjacent line of taxiway edge lights and the still-night-but- approaching-daylight contributed to my disregard of my usual next exit criterion that the lead-off lights guide between the taxiway lights, resulting in exiting the runway surface next to the intended taxiway exactly on the blacked out lead-off line that led to the previous location of Taxiway H. The bottom line contributors were fatigue after an earlier transport, planning an aggressive landing while fatigued, and visual cues that combined with my disregard of solid techniques in the process of achieving the required performance to meet the plan. In the future I will accept and use the available runway rather than plan for an expedited profile that approaches the limits of my current capabilities.
NASA classification — Anomalies
- Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural
- Ground Excursion
NASA classification — Assessments
- Contributing Factors / Situations
- Airport · Human Factors
- Primary Problem
- Human Factors
ASRS reports are voluntarily submitted, de-identified by NASA, and represent the reporter's perspective. The presence of reports on a topic cannot be used to infer prevalence in the National Airspace System. The authoritative source is the NASA ASRS Database Online at asrs.arc.nasa.gov ↗.