FAA flip-flop on ASDE-X
The latest gaffe in mismanagement of system modernization
If you’re looking for a piece of equipment that NATCA believes embodies the essence of the Federal Aviation Administration’s overall failure to modernize the air traffic control system, look no further than Airport Surface Detection Equipment, Model X (ASDE-X).
Several years ago, the agency vowed to deploy the ultra-modern ground surveillance system at 34 airports. But to date, the system is fully operational at only four: Houston-Hobby, Milwaukee, Orlando, and Providence. The system is currently being tested at Charlotte and Louisville-Standiford.
In October, the agency announced it was inexplicably scrapping plans to install ASDE-X at 15 airports that were scheduled to receive it — facilities which currently have no surface surveillance system at all: Albuquerque, Austin, Burbank, Colorado Springs, Columbus, Indianapolis, Oakland, Ontario, Calif., Raleigh-Durham, Reno, Sacramento, San Antonio, San Jose, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Tampa.
The agency’s inability to follow through on its modernization promises isn’t necessarily a surprise. On the morning of Nov. 2, NATCA held press conferences at the Detroit, Houston Intercontinental, Memphis, Minneapolis, New York, Salt Lake City and Washington-National airports — all facilities which use the Airport Movement Area Safety System (AMASS) that is known for malfunctioning in bad weather. At the conference, NATCA called on the FAA to immediately install ASDE-X at those and the other busy airports that were originally supposed to receive the equipment, but which the agency had pushed back indefinitely on the deployment list.
The most stunning development occurred immediately after those press conferences on the afternoon of Nov. 2, when the FAA answered NATCA’s call and announced it would deploy ASDE-X at 14 airports: Baltimore, Boston, Chicago Midway, Chicago O’Hare, Detroit, Houston Intercontinental, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York-JFK, New York-LaGuardia, Newark, Seattle-Tacoma, Washington Dulles and Washington National. The announcement meant that a total of 20 locations would be scheduled for ASDE-X deployment by 2011, just over half the original FAA plan.
“The FAA’s announcement was humorous, because it took our organization publicly voicing concerns about runway safety for the FAA to act. So the agency’s announcement is long overdue,” says NATCA President John Carr. “We’d like to think this is a good start, but in actuality, the agency’s foot-dragging on the decisions and its painfully slow process of actually installing the equipment lead us to fear that the process could be too little too late, since the National Transportation Safety Board’s biggest concern is an aviation disaster that occurs on the airport surface.”
NATCA officials in the towers due to receive ASDE-X say the sooner they receive the equipment, the better. “We have a really good record here as far as runway incidents,” Washington National Tower Facility Representative Chris Stephenson says. “But it only takes one.”
New York-John F. Kennedy Tower Facility Representative Barrett Byrnes said at a NATCA press conference at JFK on Nov. 2 that he is skeptical of the FAA’s shift in dates of deployment, saying that the FAA originally planned to install ASDE-X in the first wave of airports by 2009. “A lot of people can lose their lives between now and 2011,” he says.
Adding another layer to safety concerns about airport surface surveillance, NATCA Director of Safety and Technology Doug Fralick points out that adding ASDE-X to facilities that currently use AMASS may not be the best solution. “The FAA should be awarded the dubious ‘Medal of Dishonor’ for failing to live up to its repeated promises to those airports that will no longer receive a surface safety system,” notes Fralick. “But the agency will deserve an even greater disgrace if it manages to take an effective safety system and render it ineffective.” This is possible, Fralick adds, because of what’s happening with ASDE-X testing at Louisville-Standiford: the agency has tested ASDE-X safety logic on an existing ASDE-3 radar system that powers the facility’s current AMASS, and it experienced serious problems resulting in the termination of testing and the facility’s reverting back to using AMASS.
“The ASDE-X system works well the way it was designed with its own X-band radar, but no one has yet effectively proved you can adapt the safety logic to an ASDE-3 K-band radar. It is highly likely it will take the FAA an extensive use of both time and money to try and make this combined technology work. A simpler solution would have been to install a complete ASDE-X system at the current AMASS airports.”
But simpler, as NATCA President John Carr well knows, is not a word in the agency’s vocabulary, particularly in the case of ASDE-X.
