New Radar System Fails on Takeoff

Problems with a new radar system used to track planes in the nation’s five busiest airport regions, including Southern California, have forced two facilities to revert to older equipment and raised concerns about safety.

The new system, which air traffic controllers use to keep planes at safe distances from each other, fails at times to provide information quickly about such crucial matters as aircraft speed, altitude, and direction in landings and takeoffs.

The failures prompted Federal Aviation Administration officials to shut down the system in Chicago on Sunday while a team of technicians, managers and controllers began examining how to fix the problems.

The system also was deactivated earlier this month at the Dallas/Ft. Worth tracking center after problems were encountered there.

Air traffic controllers complained of ghost images on radar screens and delayed, unreliable or missing information.

The new system, called ARTS for Automated Radar Tracking System, was installed Sept. 14 in the Southern California tracking center at Miramar in San Diego County, the busiest tracking facility in the world. ARTS also has been installed at Denver and New York facilities.

FAA officials said Thursday that there were no serious safety concerns in the shutdowns at Chicago and Dallas/Ft. Worth.

“When you install anything new, you find out more about it in operation than in testing scenarios,” said FAA public affairs officer Elliott Brenner in Washington.

Brenner said teams are working to isolate the problems, some of which are unique to each tracking center. He could not estimate when the systems would be returned to use.

The new radar systems are destined eventually for all 250 tracking centers nationwide at a total cost of $1 billion.

Representatives of the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. accused the FAA of compromising safety in the nation’s skies by putting the new system into operation prematurely despite the discovery in May of recurring image and information problems.

Controllers at John Wayne Airport, in particular, found that as often as 25 times an hour, aircraft shown as blips on computer radar screens appear briefly without information on speed, altitude or direction.

The FAA denied that the new program is compromising safety in Southern California.

Countered Bill Blackmer, the union’s national safety and technology director: “It’s a dangerous system. We’re trying to talk the FAA into going back for tests.”

Union leaders said problems have been reported at all five tracking centers using the new system. The centers handle all departing and arriving planes within five miles of airports and traveling at altitudes up to 12,000 feet.

At John Wayne Airport in October, a missing radar data block caused a controller to clear a plane for takeoff without the minimum three-mile separation required by the FAA, said Howard Rifas, president of the union’s local.

Earlier this month, a computer glitch caused the Southern California system to shut down for 11 minutes, forcing the center to use a backup system. FAA spokesman Tim Pile in Seattle said no arriving or departing planes were delayed more than 15 minutes. Six planes were delayed briefly in the airspace above Los Angeles International Airport before being cleared to land.

The Southern California Terminal Radar Approach Control facility at Miramar tracks 2.5 million arrivals and departures a year at John Wayne, Los Angeles International, Long Beach, Burbank, Van Nuys, San Diego Lindbergh Field and Ontario International airports.

In Denver, two airplanes were allowed to fly too closely to each other, violating the FAA’s three-mile requirement. FAA officials labeled the incident controller error, but the union blamed it in part on a missing radar data block.

In Chicago, a ghost image caused a controller to ask a pilot mistakenly to turn his aircraft around, Brenner said.

Sometimes the data blocks freeze on the computer screen, union leaders say. An airplane that a controller is supposed to be tracking then moves on, while the controller’s information indicates the plane is still at the previous location.

Other problems include “ghost planes”--a blip on the screen showing aircraft that are not in flight. On occasion, the system fails to produce information instantly when a plane takes off or lands. The old system did so without fail, controllers said.

Controllers have been compensating for such lapses by manually typing in data, which they say distracts them from guiding aircraft.

“It might take me a minute or two to realize I had 16 planes [in the air] and only 15 planes are showing up” on the screen, Blackmer said.