"Aviation Agency Chief to Unveil Hi-Tech Radar Program at San Francisco Airport"

Tuesday, April 2, 2002

Aviation Agency Chief to Unveil Hi-Tech Radar Program at San Francisco
Airport
San Jose Mercury News, California


The nation's top aviation official will be at San Francisco
International Airport today unveiling a hi-tech ground radar program
quietly credited with preventing a collision of two Bay Area flights
last fall.

Federal Aviation Administration chief Jane Garvey will be on hand to
demonstrate software that aviation officials say recorded a "save" by
alerting controllers that a departing business jet and an arriving
commuter turboprop plane had been cleared to use the same runway at the
same time last October.

"It's a powerful system," said Walt Smith, manager of the air traffic
control tower at San Francisco Airport. "In a deep male voice, it booms,
`Obstruction on the runway,' to controllers inside the tower."

The so-called Airport Movement Area Safety System, or AMASS, took longer
than expected to deploy at San Francisco Airport. Controllers last year
reported that during testing, the system tracked "phantom" flights and
sounding unneeded alarms.

But, officials worked the bugs out and commissioned the system last
fall.

Since then, 14 of the nation's largest airport's have begun installing
similar AMASS systems. In all, more than 30 airports are scheduled to
bring AMASS on line within the next five years at a cost of more than
$90 million.

AMASS works like an extra set of eyes controllers say, by judging the
velocities and positions of arriving aircraft as well as those on the
ground and sounding alarms when two or more are on a collision course.

The FAA's case for better ground radar was bolstered in October 2000
when a Singapore Airlines flight barreled into construction equipment
during takeoff in Taiwan. The ensuing fire killed 83 people. That crash
revived memories of the deadliest airline disaster, which resulted from
a runway collision in 1977. In that case, two 747s collided -- the crash
and fire killed 582 people at an airport in the Canary Islands.

Before Sept. 11, runway collisions were becoming an increasing threat at
the nation's biggest airports. Heavy flight schedules meant runways were
becoming crowded with several flights leaving and arriving within
minutes of each other.

Runway incursions dropped off following Sept. 11, when flight schedules
were cut by 20 percent nationwide. But, this spring airlines have
already returned hundreds of daily flights to their schedules. It's only
a matter of time before AMASS is again critical to daily safety at major
airports, officials said.

Critics maintain one gripe against AMASS. Like the "black box" that
records the final minutes before a plane crashes, the AMASS system
records any potential collisions caused by controllers in the air
traffic control tower.

Almost all of those records cannot be used to reprimand controllers,
however, because of an agreement the FAA signed with the National Air
Traffic Controllers Association.

"AMASS gets at one of the great dilemmas in aviation safety," said
Michael E. Levine, a former airline executive and part-time professor at
Harvard. "The FAA gets better results by working cooperatively, and
limiting punishment. But, if something bad ever happens, Congress and
everyone screams that the agency should have been more adversarial with
controllers.

"It's not a perfect system," Levine said. "But, I think on the whole
it's a whole lot safer system now."


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