Tech designed to prevent runway collisions tested in Washington

That was an error by an air traffic controller.

In January last year, at JFK in New York, airport surface detection equipment that is installed in only 35 airports across the nation alerted the air traffic control tower just in time of a collision danger.

A Delta Air Lines Boeing 737 that had begun its takeoff acceleration with 159 people onboard was headed straight for an American Airlines Boeing 777 that was crossing the runway with 149 people on board.

Hearing an urgent command from air traffic control, the Delta pilot slammed on the brakes to abort takeoff. The jet decelerated quickly from 121 miles per hour and stopped short of crashing into the 777.

That was a mistake by the distracted crew of the American 777.

Anticipating human failures

Honeywell’s demo flight showed the Surf-A technology will cover a JFK-type takeoff incident just as well as an Austin-type, coming-in-to-land incident.

After landing at Yakima, Duval lined up the 757 to take off while far down the runway the Falcon 900 began crossing in front of it.

As with the first landing approach, the Yakima control tower gave him the thumbs-up to proceed, “approved at your own risk.”

Duval throttled the engines and began to accelerate down the runway.

The warning sounded when he was 30 seconds out from collision, still 4,400 feet away from the smaller aircraft. The 757’s speed had reached only about 35 miles per hour. Duval braked and brought it to a stop well before reaching the Falcon.

Feyereisen said Honeywell’s analysis of the JFK incident shows that if Surf-A had been installed, the pilot would have gotten a direct alert 14 seconds before the air traffic controller’s command to abort takeoff.

“That’s compelling,” she said. “Seconds can be the difference between life and death.”

Besides showing off Surf-A, Friday’s flight also gave Honeywell the chance to demonstrate other safety alert systems that are already available and installed on many airliners.

Duval on one approach lined up to land on a taxiway instead of the runway. “Caution. Taxiway,” the system voice sounded.

He came in too high on one approach, too fast on another and with the wrong flap settings on the wings on yet another. Each produced an aural warning followed by a text warning on the instrument display, with plenty of time to adjust.

But for Feyereisen, Surf-A has special significance.

In 1999 she worked on developing a safety system for pilots called Synthetic Vision, which in darkness or low visibility provides on a cockpit screen a high-resolution 3-D rendering of the terrain and other aircraft in the vicinity.

Today, that system is an option on high-end business jets and on Embraer’s new E2 regional jets. But to Feyereisen’s disappointment, “neither Boeing nor Airbus has chosen to equip yet with this brilliant safety technology.”

In a previous interview last year, Feyereisen recalled a top Boeing pilot leader telling her and Bateman after a flight demo that yes, the technology was great, but even if Honeywell gave it to Boeing free, the jet maker couldn’t take it.

The barrier for Boeing was the added cost to its airline customers of training pilots on the new system, the chief pilot told them.

In a preflight briefing Friday, Feyereisen said that a survey of airlines before last year showed Surf-A near the bottom of the list of applications that airlines wanted to add to their jets. But the Austin and JFK near collisions have changed that.

“The switch has definitely flipped,” she said. Airlines are now “enthused and interested and wanting to get this.”

“This is really my first opportunity to bring safety enhancement to the masses,” Feyereisen said.

NTSB recommended decades ago

In reports into the Austin and JFK incidents issued last week, the NTSB reiterated a recommendation it first issued in 2000: that the FAA “collaborate with aircraft and avionics manufacturers to develop a system that would alert flight crews of traffic on a runway or taxiway and traffic on approach to land.”

This technology should be required in both newly manufactured and existing airliners, the NTSB added.

“We’ve long supported systems that warn flight crews of risks directly: because every second matters,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said. “We must back up every single component of the system; direct crew alerts do just that.”

While the FAA can mandate safety regulations, the NTSB can only recommend them.

Honeywell is working with the FAA to certify the Surf-A system and Feyereisen said she expects it to be available to airlines in 12 to 18 months.

Then it will be up to airlines to pay for it and install it on the existing fleet, and to airplane manufacturers to install it on newly built airplanes.

On Friday’s flight, which departed from Seattle’s Boeing Field, several Alaska Airlines pilots were on board to observe the demonstration. The previous day, Honeywell did a similar demo flight for Boeing.

The question now is whether, after the flashing red warning signals in Austin and JFK, the U.S. aviation industry will move to implement it before a fatal accident like the one in Tokyo.