"Radar to Aid Safety at New York Airports"

Friday, February 7, 2003

Radar to Aid Safety at New York Airports
The New York (NY) Daily News


It took nearly 30 years, but radar that can prevent the kind of wind
shear-caused crashes that killed 113 people at Kennedy Airport in 1975 has
finally been installed to service airports here. 

Last week, the Federal Aviation Administration deployed its Terminal Doppler
Weather Radar at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. The radar will help detect
hazardous weather that could threaten arriving and departing flights at
Kennedy and LaGuardia airports. 

The FAA invented the radar after wind shear caused Eastern Airlines Flight
66 to slam into Rockaway Blvd. on June 25, 1975. The 727 jet was just
seconds from landing at Kennedy when it plunged to the ground. 

The radar is designed to help detect weather conditions including
microbursts, gust fronts, thunderstorms and turbulence. 

Weather safety tool Data collected by the radar -- a white, 47-foot-diameter
sphere that looks like a soccer ball and sits atop an 82-foot tower -- are
fed to air traffic controllers at Kennedy and LaGuardia. 

The FAA began installing the radar at airports in 44 other cities nine years
ago. New York's airspace is the 45th -- and last -- to get the equipment. 

"The availability of the Terminal Doppler Weather Radar for both LaGuardia
and Kennedy airports gives us one more tool to make sure that planes coming
in and out of the New York area can land and take off safely," said FAA
spokesman Jim Peters. 

The construction of the tower was not without controversy. 

Originally, there were plans to build a radar tower near Kennedy or
LaGuardia, but they were blocked by people who live in the area and elected
officials who feared it could create a health hazard. 

There was initial opposition from local leaders in Brooklyn Community Board
18, which covers Marine Park -- where Floyd Bennett Field is located -- and
Canarsie. 

Board 18 District Manager Dorothy Turano said people in the neighborhood
felt the construction of the tower there would mean the area was "being used
as a dumping ground."


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