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by Christine Sloan
NEWARK, N.J. (CBS/AP) ― The Federal Aviation Administration has cleared Continental Airlines to use a new computerized landing system on Newark Liberty International Airport's runway 29, site of an incident in October in which a passenger jet missed the runway and landed on an adjacent taxiway.

The procedure, called Required Navigation Performance, or RNP, will provide a safer approach for planes landing on runway 29 and could also help alleviate congestion, according to aviation experts familiar with Newark's airport.

Continental had been pursuing approval for the RNP approach to runway 29 before the Oct. 28 incident involving Flight 1883 from Orlando, according to FAA spokesman Jim Peters. The airline's request was approved by the FAA on Dec. 1.

An RNP approach uses on-board computers and satellite-based navigation equipment to create a virtual "highway in the sky" pilots can view on a cockpit-mounted display. It also identifies other aircraft and geographic features.

Most domestic planes are equipped with the technology, Peters said, but the FAA must develop a specific program for individual runways to be coded into the airplane's computer.

Newark Liberty's two primary runways, which run northeast to southwest, are already set up for RNP approaches but only use it as a backup to the primary Instrument Landing System (ILS), a precision instrument approach that displays in the cockpit whether a plane is lined up with the middle of the runway.

Runway 29, which lands to the northwest, is not equipped with an ILS and instead uses a visual approach that will be enhanced with the RNP procedure, according to Peters.

"The availability of this procedure will help ensure the accuracy of aircraft landing on 29," he said.

The technology behind RNP procedures was pioneered by Alaska Airlines in the mid-1990s to enable its planes to land in bad weather or mountainous terrain. The airline was also the first approved by the FAA to fly into Washington's Reagan National Airport using RNP procedures, beginning in late 2005.

Using the RNP approach to runway 29 could also help reduce some of the delays at the airport.

"If you're flying into Newark and landing on one of the main runways, we have approaches that break off to 29," said Russ Halleran, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association union at the airport. "It would give us more ability to accept more arrivals at Newark."

The incidence of jets landing on taxiways is rare.

In the Oct. 28 missed-runway incident at Newark, Flight 1883 carrying 154 people was cleared for an approach to runway 22L, which lands to the southwest, before being directed to land on runway 29 and eventually landing on the parallel taxiway.

In its review of the incident, Continental found that "despite misidentifying the runway, the pilots performed their duties in a professional manner," according to company spokeswoman Mary Clark. Both pilots -- who had a total of more than 20,000 hours of flight time between them -- underwent retraining and have returned to duty, she said.

The National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating the incident, and neither Continental nor Peters would comment on whether the RNP procedures would have prevented Flight 1883 from landing in error on taxiway Z. But Peters and Halleran acknowledged that it will make for safer approaches to Runway 29.

"It would give the airplanes a more stable approach from a safety standpoint," Halleran said.

(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)