Study Would Combine Reports Of Pilots, Controllers

The FAA is reportedly looking at setting up a program that will go beyond the near-collision reporting system already in place with an eye towards determining how such situations develop. The goals, the FAA says in agency documents, are to "more accurately identify potential hazards and develop more robust mitigation strategies" while not punishing pilots or ATC personnel.

Both United Airlines and Southwest have reportedly been approached about partnering with the FAA on the project. The Wall Street Journal reports that, while United acknowledges the talks, a Southwest spokesperson had no comment.

The FAA already has a voluntary reporting system in place which allows controllers, pilots and others to report a broad spectrum of safety issues and which "provides for the waiver of certain disciplinary actions against persons, including pilots and air traffic controllers, who file timely written reports concerning potentially unsafe incidents." The new program is reportedly in response to some 400 reports the NTSB has received over the past few months of TCAS collision warning activations, about a dozen of which have been deemed "serious."

The paper reports that the FAA and others have been looking at reports provided by European carriers which shows a spike of proximity warnings around major airports. The FAA says it is too early to comment on any conclusions reached in the reports.

The eventual goal, according to the FAA, is formal pilot-controller cooperation in analyzing incidents where airplanes fly too close together, patterned after the existing safety initiatives that do not, in most cases, penalize either the pilots or the controllers for making the report. Currently, authorities analyze reports from pilots and controllers separately, and the thinking is that more can be learned if they are taken together along with flight data. The FAA says that "merging the perspectives" of pilots and controllers could lead to an enhanced understanding of how near-collision incidents occur.

FMI: www.faa.gov