Avoiding airplane collisions at airports could come down to alerts
On a Honeywell Test Aircraft – Aviation Go Honeywell It is building new cockpit warnings that developers say it will give a more valuable time to react to airports to airports.
Honeywell Senior Test Pilot Captain Kirk Vining at the end of last month, the so-called surface alert or surf-a warnings, re-creating some of the most serious ones Close to disasters At the airports in the history of the last aviation.
A Gulfstream G550 business jet was stopped on the same track, where Vining was about to touch Kansas Airport a few minutes before Topeka Regional Airport.
“Traffic on the runway!” Honeywell called the automatic warning in the cockpit of the test aircraft: 43 -year -old Boeing 757 canceled his landing while withdrawn and flew safely around the airport.
Honeywell’s Boeing 757 test aircraft in Kansas, Topeka.
ERİN BLACK/CNBC
In recent years, a series of serious recent calls have increased concerns about how to avoid better than them in tight airports. National Transportation Security Council and other security experts calling More advanced cockpit warnings as Honeywell tested.
When the runway attacks are on the track when there is no plane, person or a vehicle, an average of 4.5 per day last year. The Federal Aviation Administration classifies them according to violence, where the hill and the most rare are: “A serious event in which a collision is prevented in a narrow way”, “an event that can lead to a time-critical corrective/avoidance response to prevent a collision in which the distinction is decreased and a significant potential for collision can lead to a reaction”.
Serious runway attacks at US airports peaked at 22 in 2023 at 22 years. FAA added new lighting and other security technology to the country -wide airports to try to achieve the target of zero nearby meeting.
‘Being a bad pilot’
“Very good to be a bad pilot, Thea, a distinguished technical man for Honeywell Aerospace Technologies. The unit is developing new cockpit features for the aviators and said the new suite expects the regulator certificate next year.
“Seconds are counted as working near the runway, and how quickly you can inform the pilots about a potential serious situation, Feye Feyereisen said Feyereisen.
The Honeywell test aircraft was not configured like a regular passenger jet and there was no customer on the ship. There were a series of spacious seats in front of the plane, but at the back, Honeywell flight engineers were placed on the consoles, watching flight data and warnings in real time. In a statement to a company spokesman CNBC, at the beginning of that day, the Ministry of Transport showed technology on a flight with FAA and NTSB officials.
Vining has simulated another event since 2023. American Airlines A track of 777 has passed for London. Delta Air Lines 737, an air traffic controller instructed the instruction instead of holding it under the runway. In this case, the Delta pilot canceled the departure and both aircraft descended to the destination points safely.
Consoles on Honeywell’s test plane, Boeing 757.
Magdalena Petrova/CNBC
Honeywell said Surf-A warnings could give pilots a potential collision with a potential collision statement. The new program Tested by Honeywell uses ADS-B data, which is a GPS for automatic dependent surveillance or a GPS for a plane.
“Usually pilots, air traffic control, airport management is a very good working environment between airport management.” He said. “We do this safe, efficient and smoothly. But at the same time you can see the slightest interruption, a little variation, and things can go wrong very quickly.”
Aviation and space giant already make a mistake such as landing on pilots or whether they are about to go to a taxi road instead of a track, for example with visual warnings and auditory warnings on a screen – “Caution! Taxi Way!” The so -called Smart X package warns pilots if the wings are not set correctly, the track is too short or if it comes too high or too fast, as well as other cases.
Jeff Guzzetti, a retired air safety researcher with NTSB and FAA, said, “The plane, as well as the airports where there are other planes trying to land, the most dangerous point of the collision,” he said.
These warnings continued Alaska Airlines Airplane for years and more recently, Southwest Airlines He added them. Honeywell said that warnings are currently flying on more than 3,000 aircraft operated by 20 airlines, but this is still limited to hundreds of carriers operating worldwide.
“Since we implement the software, I can’t think of an example we have undergone,” Southwest’s Vice President of Security and Security and 737 pilot Dave Hunt said. He said.
American Airlines According to a lesson plan by CNBC, he trained his pilots on these warnings in the second quarter of the year. Last month, a spokesman received his first plane with track awareness and other warnings on the ship with other warnings.
The warnings are not necessary by the regulators, but the FAA referred to a group of airlines, aviation, pilot union, government and industrial authorities, “to” determine the next steps “to” review the recommendations from runway safety “, he said. last year Recommended new aircraft contain more advanced cockpit warnings in case of situational awareness problems in airports.
Alaska Airlines Director Jon Sites, “Warnings occur further away from the track, so if there is a plane on the track, you do not need to lower this decision too much,” he said.
Swiss cheese model
Honeywell’s test aircraft during the display of the new gasket -opposite warning technology.
Leslie Josephs/CNBC
The United States is the most intense aviation market in the world with 44,000 flights carrying 3 million passengers a day. Serious aviation accidents are rare and fatal accidents are more rare.
However, on January 29, an army black hawk helicopter A few minutes from landing to the Washington Reagan National Airport, an American Airlines collided on the regional jetine, killed 67 people on two planes, and increased their troublesome concerns on a US airspace.
The aviation industry is based on the Swiss cheese safety model, which comes with the holes that are ideally covered when each tongue provides protection, but when security measures are stacked on top of each other.
Sites in Alaska Airlines are based on security layers on aviation layers. ” He said.
Honeywell’s Charles B. Wheeler B. Wheeler Missouri, Missouri, Missouri, Austin in February 2023 re -created a real incident in Texas in February 2023. Fedex The Boeing 767 aircraft canceled the landing seconds before touching the same runway by an air traffic controller. Southwest 737 To get up.
The Fedex pilot saw the draft of the southwest plane through the fog and pulled up and then landed safely. According to the Federal Security Inspectors, both flights continued safely their destinations, but two aircraft approached up to 150 feet, less than the length of Fedex 767.
Feyereisen, NTSB, according to a report, Honeywell’s technology in the 2023 Austin incident Fedex pilots on the track of 28 -second advanced traffic notification, he said.
Not yet necessary
Engineers collect data on a Honeywell test aircraft.
Magdalena Petrova/CNBC
Feyereisen said that the new technology can be strengthened on old aircraft and is available for new jets.
“In general, the cost of the software is for tens of thousands of dollars. [per plane]But it’s not hundreds of thousands of dollars, “Feyereisen said.” [a] 150 million dollar aircraft… The cost per passenger is less than half. “
This year, Southwest added software to about 800 Boeing 737 fleets. Hunt is between $ 20 million and $ 30 million to remove the planes’ clothes.
“Cheaper than an accident,” he said.
On February 25, a southwest plane, according to NTSB, canceled his arrival after landing at Chicago Midway International Airport when a Bombardier Challenger proceeded to the 350 business jet.
Such recent calls, “Very rare, but frankly they are something related, and we will try to reduce as much as possible,” Hunt said. Honeywell software “is very effective in making our pilots aware of where they are at the airport” and “he does a really good job to get rid of runways during the taxi.”
Limitations
A Honeywell Test pilot is going forward because of traffic on the track on the track in Topeka Regional Airport in Kansas as part of an show.
ERİN BLACK/CNBC
Feyereisen while developing warnings, pilots rather than a help, rather than critical security tasks, may be distracting “trouble warnings” known as too much information is not to have a key to having a key, he said.
“If you are detonating warnings in a cocpit speaker at low altitude during a critical flight stage such as landing or take -off approach that needs to be completely focused on the attention of pilots, you create a lot of attention.” He said.
There are also limitations in the current warnings and new programs tested by Honeywell. To avoid air collisions, commercial aircraft must have traffic warning and collision escape system or TCAs, which helps them to see the traffic around the cockpit screens. However, this system is generally used for at least 1,000 feet heights.
This would not help the pilots on the American Airlines plane under 400 feets in the deadly collision with the Black Hawk helicopter in Washington DC.
Feyereisen, “TCAs and ADS-B-Typi information can bring together the gap we are investigating alternatives.” He said.
Alaska’s security director sites, DC accident, “the industry is a big, unexpected event, but I think the last 50 years of the registry shows that this is a very, very rare event.”
“So we continue as an industry to try to find a better technology there, and to prevent it from realizing and to take it to a low level as possible, developments in the current technology.” He said. “I don’t know if you have reached zero in any aviation system, but I mean, we’ll try to approach zero as much as we can.”
