Nov. 16--WASHINGTON -- The National Transportation Safety Board, citing a near-collision of two passenger jets at Logan International Airport in June, upbraided federal aviation officials yesterday, saying it is unacceptable that pilots still don't get direct warnings about impending collisions from ground radar systems.
The eight to 11 seconds it takes for air traffic controllers to get the warning from radar and relay it to pilots could be the difference between a close call and a disaster, safety board members said.
"This is clearly one of our top priorities," said Mark V. Rosenker, acting board chairman.
Yesterday, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that on Friday Logan became the first of 21 airports in the nation to get a software patch designed to fix a glitch in ground radar systems that prevents the systems from detecting planes approaching each other on intersecting runways.
In at least three incidents in the past year, including the June 9 near-collision, Logan's warning system did not give an alert because of the software error.
A new computer animation confirms that the US Airways and Aer Lingus planes, carrying 381 passengers and crew, came within 106 feet vertically and 379 feet horizontally of crashing into each other, officials of the National Transportation Safety Board said. The pilots of the US Airways jet, Captain Henry Jones and First Officer James L. Dannahower, received a safety award last month from a regional FAA office for keeping their plane on the ground during takeoff and avoiding a potential catastrophe.
The software upgrade that Logan received Friday will be temporary until Logan and 13 other airports nationwide get a new, more sophisticated ground radar system that works better at night and in bad weather. FAA officials have not said when Logan would receive that system, which costs $8.5 million, but the agency has set a nationwide deadline to have the systems installed by 2011.
Safety board members, however, said the delay could jeopardize travelers.
The board has been calling for direct warnings to pilots about possible ground collisions since 2000, as part of its annual list of "most wanted" transportation safety improvements. For the fifth year in a row, the board said the FAA had offered an "unacceptable response" to the problem.
"We need to do all we can to put pressure on the FAA," board member Debbie Hersman said.
Board members also criticized the FAA for pushing back installation of the more sophisticated ground radar from 2007 to 2011, which in turn will delay new runway warning light systems.
"The timing on this particular schedule has taken a long time, and now it's stretching out even further," said John Clark, the board's director of aviation safety. "But I think if we sat back and waited for the perfect solution, it would never happen."
FAA officials downplayed the delays, saying the agency doesn't have the money to buy the systems quickly and that new technology takes time to test and install.
"I wish it was that easy," said Jeffrey Loague, acting director of the FAA's runway safety and operational service. "But we have a responsibility to the flying public to make sure these systems are tested and safe before putting them in place."
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association used the safety board recommendations to again chide the FAA, with which it is negotiating a new contract, for not taking a comprehensive approach to maintaining and modernizing the air traffic control system.
The union's president, John Carr, said in a New York speech that the FAA's decision to install the more sophisticated ground radar system at larger airports such as Logan will create a "two-tiered" safety system that threatens fast-growing airports in medium-sized cities.
Logan, the nation's 17th-busiest airport with 1,250 daily arrivals and departures, had no officially reported runway incidents between Oct. 1, 2003, and Sept. 30, 2004. Since then, Logan has tallied 16 incidents, more than double the total for the previous three-year period and the largest number of runway incursions at a single airport nationwide.
The FAA sent a team to Logan in October to try to determine the cause of the increase. A final report on that investigation could be released later this month, FAA officials said. Nationwide, the number of runway incursions dropped from 327 between Oct. 1, 2003, and Sept. 30, 2004, to 324 between Oct. 1, 2004 and Sept. 30.
