FAA Hopes Repairs to Palm Beach Airport's Radar System Will Eliminate Failures

FAA Hopes Repairs to Palm Beach Airport's Radar System
Will Eliminate Failures
South Florida Sun-Sentinel, FL

Posted January 13 2004 

Controllers at Palm Beach International Airport will
continue to rely on a new radar system, even though it
has failed five times since last month and forced air
traffic restrictions, which could result in delays.

The Federal Aviation Administration on Monday said
that by the end of the week it would make repairs to
the $4.5 million airport surveillance radar, called
ASR-11, in hopes it won't fail again.
 
The system malfunctioned on Dec. 4, Jan. 6, twice on
Thursday and once on Saturday, deleting a plane's
identification, airspeed and altitude data from
scopes.

The glitches lasted from two minutes to several hours.

Because controllers had a primary system that showed
"targets" on a screen, as well as a backup system, "at
no time was safety compromised," said FAA spokesman
Christopher White.

Just the same, until the ASR-11 is completely tested
at Palm Beach International, the FAA is putting extra
space between arriving planes and reducing the number
of landings per hour from 36 to 24.

That could result in delays of as long as 30 minutes,
but more likely only a few minutes on average,
officials said.

ASR-11, made by Raytheon Co., is the newest generation
of airport surveillance radar, allowing controllers to
guide aircraft toward their final approaches or away
from an airport area. The radar also provides
controllers with advanced weather information.

White said FAA technicians already have determined the
source of the glitches: the computer that transfers
information from the radar's antenna to a controller's
screen. That computer is being replaced.

"We're also making software upgrades to make sure the
system is more reliable and more recoverable in the
event of an outage," he said.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association,
representing 43 controllers at PBIA, had wanted an
older radar system revived until all kinks are worked
out of the new system, but it hesitantly agreed to the
FAA's repair plan.

"We've got assurances that this system is as reliable
as any other system, after the changes are implemented
this week," said Anthony Askew of NATCA.

Another reason the union acquiesced: The three most
recent outages were the result of technicians placing
monitoring equipment on the system while trying to
discern the root problem.

The two outages on Thursday occurred shortly after
President Bush's plane departed West Palm Beach.

Askew said that for short periods during each of the
failures, screens became so jumbled that controllers
were unable to determine the position of planes.

"We might as well have a blindfold on," he said.

Askew said that even after the FAA's fixes,
controllers want to see the number of landings at PBIA
reduced until they are comfortable with ASR-11. The
union will meet with the FAA again on Thursday to
assess the repairs.

"We want to keep traffic at a much more controlled
pace, should we suffer another outage," he said. "If
someone gets delayed, we apologize, but it's the right
thing to do. We'd rather they get there in one piece
than not at all."

Palm Beach International controllers handle about
1,000 takeoffs or landings per day on average. During
busy times, controllers could see hundreds of targets
on their screeners per hour, Askew said.

Palm Beach International was the first large
commercial airport in the nation to use ASR-11,
starting up the system in May. Since then, it has been
in a testing phase.

The system is also operating at the Stockton, Calif.,
municipal airport and the Willow Grove, Pa., Naval Air
Station, and has not caused problems at either one,
the FAA said.

Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood and Miami international
airports are not slated to receive the ASR-11 system
because both are equipped with ASR-9, also a new
generation of surveillance radar.

In all, the FAA plans to install the ASR-11 radar at
112 commercial airports over the next five years.

Ken Kaye can be reached at kkaye@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx or
954-385-7911.  

 Do you have an opinion about this story?
Share it with other readers in our CAA Discussion Forums

http://www.californiaaviation.org/dc/dcboard.php

*****************************************