System Goes Down Every Night, For 20 Seconds At A Time

The Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS) has expressed concern about the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) seeming indifference toward fixing a problem, caused by a private contractor, that has resulted in nightly disruptions of information fed into Little Rock National Airport coming from its long-range radars.

PASS representatives tell ANN the three remote long-range radars in question send information to Little Rock using communications circuitry jointly developed by Harris Corp. and Raytheon. Little Rock currently relies on the radars for information as backup in case the Little Rock primary radar fails, as part of the FAA's Federal Telecommunications Infrastructure (FTI).

On every night since Thanksgiving, at precisely 12:02 am controllers in Little Rock receive an error warning, saying the radar system is down. The circuitry failure lies within the only FTI line that serves Little Rock, and often lasts about 20 seconds at a time.

"Responsibility for this serious problem ultimately falls on the FAA," said Dave Spero, PASS regional vice president. "The agency has a duty to demand private contractors meet the same rigorous standards expected of federal employees."

"...Losing an aircraft for 20 seconds is not a trivial matter," Spero added. "The reliability and efficiency of these radar systems is vital to the safety of air travel."

FAA spokesman Roland Herwig, representing the agency's southwest regional office, downplayed the issue.

"The sky is not falling," he told the Arkansas News Bureau. "The system that they are talking about is a backup of a backup, so it is three times removed from the main system."

"There is a problem and we are working with the contractor to fix it," Herwig acknowledged, "but there is not any kind of safety problem for the Little Rock area."

Spero says the FAA has been unresponsive to fixing the problem, and that Harris has been "no help" in resolving the glitch.

"This is just another example of the FAA cutting corners on safety," Spero said.

FMI: www.passnational.org, www.faa.gov