Congonhas airport will be the first with the EMAS system in Latin America

With the federal investment, the site will have the technology developed in the USA and used in other countries, which creates a new exhaust area, increasing the safety of the runway.

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Feb 12, Sao Paulo: The main runway at Congonhas Airport, in São Paulo, will be the first in Latin America to feature EMAS (Engineered Material Arresting System) technology, a structure that creates a new escape area with concrete blocks that deform when an aircraft passes the final limit of the track. The work, which will bring more security to operations, will be made possible with resources from the Federal Government.

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The Minister of Infrastructure, Tarcísio Gomes de Freitas, signed the service order this Thursday (11), in the city of São Paulo, alongside the Ministry's National Civil Aviation Secretary, Ronei Glanzmann, and the President of Infraero, Brigadier Hélio Paes de Barros.

“We have already invested in the runway with the porous friction layer, which increases aircraft adherence and eliminates the problem of aquaplaning, and now EMAS, which will be installed on the two headlands. It is investment mainly in security. Safety comes first, ”said the minister. According to him, the new runway security system adds value to the airport, which will be granted in 2022.

The investment of R $ 122.5 million will be made by Infraero, which manages the airport. The winning consortium in the bidding process was Kibag / Conserva, formed by the companies Kibag Brasil, Conserva de Estradas and Kibag Airfield Construction AG. In Congonhas, the new exhaust area was designed to slow aircraft in landing procedures that come to exceed the runway limits, in accordance with the country's civil aviation standards.

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EMAS

EMAS is a technology that allows increasing operational security at airports with limited physical space. It is used to slow down aircraft that pass the end of the runway by crushing concrete blocks. “The depth of EMAS increases the further one moves through the covered area, providing greater drag, bringing even more security to a strategic airport for the country's aviation,” explained the president of Infraero.

Infraero's planning foresees that the work will be executed in 16 months and leave the main runway with two new escape areas: one 70m x 45m at the 17R headland, and another 75m x 45m at the 35L headland. The two structures will be supported by beams and pillars capable of supporting aircraft and vehicles.

To install EMAS at Congonhas Airport, Infraero integrated a working group with the National Civil Aviation Agency (Anac) to study and create criteria for the design, installation and maintenance of aircraft deceleration systems. The project also counted on the contribution of technicians from the Brazilian Association of Airlines (Abear) and from the Ministry of Infrastructure, who made the necessary notes regarding the requirements of the enterprise.

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EMAS is adopted at airports in Europe, Asia and the United States. The technology began to be developed in the 1990s, through research by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which has a program to improve runway end safety areas (RESAs) at commercial airports, such as New York (JFK and LaGuardia) and Boston. Since then, technologies have evolved and had international certification from various civil aviation authorities around the world.