New system of lights designed to make LAX safer

Pilots who fly into and out of L.A. International Airport are seeing more red. The airport and the Federal Aviation Administration unveiled a new system of stop lights at the airport today.

The FAA's Wes Timmons says the red lights along taxiways are designed to prevent runway incursions and collisions.

Wes Timmons: "Runway status lights are very much like stop lights that you see in traffic, but to a pilot what it is, is a series of red lights that they light up when it's unsafe for an airplane to either cross a runways, enter a runway, or to make a takeoff on a runway. LAX is just the third airport to get runway status lights."

Airports in San Diego and Dallas-Fort Worth already have installed similar the lights. Close calls between planes on those runways dropped by up to 70 percent after they installed the status lights. L.A. International used to log the highest number of runway incursions in the country. The airport's $7 million runway status lights have been in place since April.