Questions from the Cockpit: When you’re hot, you’re hot

Earl, a private pilot from Oklahoma, writes: I’m a rusty pilot, back in action after… well…let’s just say too long. I’ve noticed a lot of things have changed, to put it mildly. Recently, I heard about so-called “Hot Spots,” areas on the airport where I’m told I must exercise increased vigilance. “Hot Spot” meant something else in my youth. So, is this the real name for these areas? Or is this just CFI slang? And who decides if an area is hot or not in the first place?

The term is the real deal. Straight from the horse’s mouth. The horse being the FAA, in this case.

Now, like you, even though I’m a pretty hot pilot, I seemed to have missed the genesis of the Hot Spot during a rusty spell. And like you, I recall when a Hot Spot was a watering hole that you went to after flying — usually wearing your leather flight jacket (even in the summer) so everyone would know you were a pilot. Many young pilots did this back in the day after we read in Tom Wolf’s 1979 novel, The Right Stuff, that being a pilot made one irresistible to the opposite sex.

With that in mind, heat stroke seemed a small price to pay.

But, back to those areas defined as “a location on an aerodrome movement area with a history or potential risk of collision or runway incursion, where heightened attention by pilots/drivers is necessary.”

Here in the USA, the feds first started charting Hot Spots in the Terminal Procedures Publication and the then-called Airport Facilities Directory in 2009.

Of course, this wasn’t an overnight thing. Apparently, the FAA’s Office of Runway Safety started really working on Hot Spots back in 2003, and in fairness to the private sector, Jepp charts included some “unofficial” Hot Spots as far back as 2001.

In the beginning, the official designation for the sites on the charts was HOT 1, HOT 2, HOT 3, etc. At some point, the nomenclature changed to the blander HS 1, HS 2, HS 3, and so on. 

I guess it’s just not as hot a topic as it was in the beginning.

Anyway, in 2010, the inaugural year of full Hot Spot rollout, there were 84 Hot Spots in the country. How many are there now?

Well, it’s a moving target, but according to Nia Fields, a Technical Publications Writer for the FAA, there are currently 635. The reason that number is a moving target is because, unlike diamonds, Hot Spots aren’t forever. New ones can be added. Old ones may decommissioned. 

So what’s the process? Who decides that a spot is hot or not? What are the factors that go into the decision? Is it a set number of incidents or a set severity of incidents at a location that’s required to brand it as a Hot Spot? 

Well, it turns out, it’s a bit of a fuzzy process. First off, anyone can propose a Hot Spot: Pilot, line person, tower controller, concerned citizen, or even an organization.

According to Fields, the submission needs to include the location, the concern, “and the verbiage that will be published in the Government Flight Information Publications.” Verbiage? That’s the tweet-length description of the issue that led to the Hot Spot’s creation, found in Section 5 of any Chart Supplement. 

Fields says that while anyone can propose a Hot Spot, “usually, it’s the result of a Runway Safety Action Team meeting, or the assessment of surface events which points to publishing a Hot Spot as a means to warn the pilots of the risk.”

After submission, via a web page called the Aeronautical Information Portal, the FAA Runway Safety Program staff reviews the proposal and makes the final approval or denial.

Going back to that original definition of a Hot Spot being an “area with a history or potential risk of collision or runway incursion,” Fields says both quantitative and qualitative factors are considered when establishing a Hot Spot. The team looks at both “the history of surface events” on the quantitative side and the configuration of the pavement, how the signs and markings are deployed, local procedures, and more on the qualitative side.

Although not permanent, unlike a carton of milk, there doesn’t seem to be a set expiration date for Hot Spots, or even any requirement to revisit them on a set schedule.

“The Hot Spot remains published until the risk, or risks, of pilot confusion are mitigated,” Fields says simply.

I asked if there was ever a Hot Spot that was created, decommissioned, and then found to still be necessary and brought back to life again.

“There are no records kept on this topic,” she says. “However, once a Hot Spot is removed from the charts, future reports may necessitate publishing another Hot Spot for that location.”

Finally, where did the term Hot Spot actually come from? Well, despite what I told you at the outset, it is sorta slang. The full official name for these areas of heightened attention is “Airport Surface Hot Spot,” although even the FAA uses the diminutive Hot Spot on both its website and in most of its publications.

But as to the origin of the term, that I couldn’t discover. It’s delightfully simple and descriptive, which is not at all what we’d expect from the FAA. I would have expected something more like Air Crew and Ground Personnel Incursion Avoidance Awareness Zone, or ACGPIAAZ for short. 

So for once, at least, the FAA picked a pretty hot term, don’t you think?