According to the head of the Federal Aviation Administration, failing to separate two runways at Los Angeles International Airport would be a very big mistake. This warning, which came from Randy Babbitt, comes just two months after an academic panel concluded that there was no need to reconfigure the north field runways, because altering them would not make them much safer.

Mr Babbitt said that the status quo is not good enough for the Federal Aviation Administration. The city of Los Angeles should not view it as good enough for the traveling public.

One federal study done two years ago shows that the airport has more runway incursions, or incidents in which aircrafts strayed into areas designated for takeoffs and landing, than any other airport in all of the United States. It was the hope that this recent study would put to rest more than two decades of disputes between the Federal Aviation Administration and locals who worried that runway changes would cost millions of dollars and prompt airport expansion into neighborhoods.

Babbitt, who is a former pilot, said that he had flown into the airport hundreds of times, and there should be more space between the two north runways. He said that two close calls occurred on the runway last month. The current layout is too cramped for jumbo jets such as the Airbus A380 and the Boeing 787. He also said that a drop occurred in the number of near collisions after the south airfield runways were separated. This $333 million project was completed two years ago.

Babbitt even went as far as to criticize the academic safety study as flawed. He outlined a list of technical concerns even though it was supported by simulations conducted at NASA’s Ames Research Center.