Air Traffic Plan Called Already Dated

The use of computer systems based on older technology could make a planned Southern California aircraft tracking facility obsolete even before it opens, the General Accounting Office said in a report issued this week.

As a result, air traffic controllers may find their radar screens flickering, showing insufficient data or blanking out at critical moments, the report said.

The report, prepared for congressional subcommittees reviewing the Federal Aviation Administration’s appropriations requests, criticizes the agency for not heeding a similar GAO report last year that singled out the Los Angeles-Orange County air space as having the worst computer-related aircraft tracking problems.

The latest report also echoes last year’s National Transportation Safety Board study showing that the Los Angeles-Orange County area leads the nation in near mid-air collision reports and is dependent in part on an outdated, inadequate FAA radar facility at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station known as Coast Terminal Radar Approach Control.

FAA officials said Tuesday that they are still analyzing the GAO report and had no formal reply.

At an estimated cost of $114 million, the FAA plans to consolidate radar tracking facilities at Los Angeles, Burbank, El Toro and Ontario by moving operations to Miramar, near San Diego, by 1995.

The GAO report, entitled “Air Traffic Control--Inadequate Planning Increases Risk of Computer Failures in Los Angeles,” said that FAA officials have refused to consider computer solutions that would solve the computer capacity problem because the agency does not want to rewrite or develop software to run on new, state-of-the-art hardware and expend the “additional time they believe would be required to undertake such an effort.”

The study accused the FAA of refusing to use proper growth rates for projecting future air traffic.