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● CJI ANALYSIS ·by Fayaz Hussain ·May 28, 2026 ·10:16Z

NTSB urges FAA to tighten wet runway standards | Corporate Jet Investor | CJI news

The National Transportation Safety Board issued three recommendations to the Federal Aviation Administration after reviewing 11 runway overrun accidents and incidents between 2008 and 2022, finding that actual braking friction on wet runways is significantly lower than current regulations assume. The NTSB determined that risks increase with rainfall intensity and existing weather reporting fails to capture these conditions, recommending the FAA update its runway condition assessment matrix with progressively lower braking performance values and expanded rainfall intensity descriptors.
Detailed analysis

The National Transportation Safety Board has issued three formal safety recommendations to the FAA targeting a systemic gap in how wet runway braking performance is estimated and communicated to flight crews. The recommendations stem from an NTSB review of 11 runway overrun accidents and incidents occurring between 2008 and 2022, a dataset broad enough to establish a credible pattern rather than an isolated anomaly. At the core of the board's findings is a fundamental mismatch: actual friction coefficients on wet runways can fall substantially below the values encoded in the current Runway Condition Assessment Matrix (RCAM), meaning the landing distance figures crews compute prior to arrival may be meaningfully shorter than what the runway will actually demand. The three specific asks to the FAA are to update the RCAM to reflect declining braking performance as rainfall intensity increases, to introduce new weather reporting descriptors for heavy rain conditions beyond the existing 0.3-inch-per-hour threshold, and to integrate those new descriptors into the RCAM once established.

For working pilots — particularly those operating under Part 135 or Part 91K where landing performance accountability is explicit and documented — this matters immediately at the operational level. The RCAM is a tool crews and dispatchers use daily to translate reported runway conditions into actionable braking action categories, and those categories feed directly into landing distance calculations. If the matrix systematically overstates friction on wet surfaces, every wet-runway landing distance calculation built on it carries a structural optimism bias. The problem is compounded by the rainfall intensity reporting gap: a runway reported simply as "wet" during moderate rain and a runway bathed in a heavy convective downpour carry vastly different surface dynamics, yet current METAR reporting descriptors do not granularly distinguish conditions above the existing heavy-rain threshold. Crews have no standardized, RCAM-linked way to quantify how much worse conditions may be when rain is at its heaviest.

The NTSB's additional note about grooved versus smooth runways adds another layer of operational nuance. Grooved pavement is widely understood to channel water away from the tire contact patch more efficiently, producing meaningfully better wet-braking performance than smooth concrete or asphalt under the same precipitation conditions. If an updated RCAM does not account for this distinction, operators at airports with ungrooved runway surfaces — common at smaller general aviation and reliever airports frequently used by Part 135 and corporate flight departments — could continue applying friction assumptions calibrated for better-equipped pavement. Business aviation operators who regularly use secondary or destination airports with aging infrastructure should treat this as a particular area of exposure until any regulatory update explicitly addresses runway surface type.

Taken in the broader regulatory context, these recommendations reflect a continuing push by the NTSB to close the gap between the theoretical performance assumptions embedded in certification data and the real-world conditions crews encounter. The RCAM itself was a product of the Takeoff and Landing Performance Assessment (TALPA) Aviation Rulemaking Committee's work, implemented by the FAA in 2016 as a replacement for the older, subjective braking action reporting system. That reform was broadly considered an improvement, but the NTSB's current findings suggest the friction coefficients underpinning the matrix were drawn from data that does not fully represent high-intensity rain scenarios. The FAA has not yet formally responded to the recommendations, and the timeline for any rulemaking or advisory circular update remains open. Until changes are implemented, operators would be prudent to apply conservative margins when computing wet-runway landing distances during active precipitation, treat "wet" runway reports during heavy rain with appropriate skepticism, and brief crews explicitly on the limitations of current RCAM-derived distance figures when conditions approach or exceed the existing heavy-rain reporting threshold.

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