Thu, Aug 26, 2010
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.
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