ABOARD A HONEYWELL TEST PLANE — Aerospace large Honeywell is constructing new cockpit alerts that builders say will give airline pilots extra treasured time to react to hazards at airports.
Honeywell senior check pilot Capt. Kirk Vining late final month put the alerts — referred to as Floor Alert, or SURF-A — to the check by recreating a few of the most critical near disasters at airports in current aviation historical past.
Moments earlier than touchdown at Topeka Regional Airport, a Gulfstream G550 enterprise jet was stopped on the identical runway the place Vining was about to the touch down on the Kansas airport.
“Site visitors on runway!” referred to as out the automated alert within the cockpit of Honeywell’s check airplane: a 43-year-old Boeing 757, as Vining pulled up, aborted his touchdown and flew across the airport safely.
Honeywell’s Boeing 757 check airplane on the bottom in Topeka, Kansas.
Erin Black/CNBC
A number of significant shut calls in recent times has raised issues about learn how to higher keep away from them in ever-more congested airports. The Nationwide Transportation Security Board and different security consultants have urged extra superior cockpit alerts like those Honeywell is testing.
Runway incursions, when a airplane, particular person or car is on the runway once they should not be, averaged 4.5 a day final yr. The Federal Aviation Administration categorizes them by severity, the place the highest and rarest two are: “a critical incident by which a collision was narrowly averted” adopted by “an incident by which separation decreases and there’s a important potential for collision might end in a time-critical corrective/evasive response to keep away from a collision.”
Severe runway incursions at U.S. airports peaked at 22 in 2023, probably the most in at the least a decade. The FAA has added new lighting and different security expertise at airports across the nation to attempt to get to its aim of zero shut calls.
‘Good at being a foul pilot’
“He is superb at being a foul pilot,” Thea Feyereisen, a distinguished technical fellow for Honeywell Aerospace Applied sciences, mentioned of Vining. Her unit develops new cockpit options for aviators, and she or he mentioned she expects the brand new suite to win regulator certification subsequent yr.
“Seconds rely if you’re working close to the runway, and the earlier you possibly can let the pilots know of a possible critical scenario, the higher,” Feyereisen mentioned.
The Honeywell check airplane wasn’t configured like a daily passenger jet, and there weren’t any paying prospects on board. It had a set of roomy seats towards the entrance of the airplane, however within the again, Honeywell flight engineers had been positioned at consoles, monitoring flight knowledge and the alerts in actual time. Earlier that day, Honeywell demonstrated the expertise on a flight with Division of Transportation, FAA and NTSB officers on board, an organization spokesman advised CNBC.
Vining carried out a simulation of one other incident from 2023, when an American Airlines 777 certain for London crossed a runway the place a Delta Air Lines 737 was taking off as an alternative of holding wanting the runway as an air visitors controller instructed. The Delta pilot in that scenario aborted takeoff and each planes landed safely at their locations.
Consoles aboard Honeywell’s check airplane, a Boeing 757.
Magdalena Petrova/CNBC
Honeywell mentioned its SURF-A alerts may have given the pilots 10 extra seconds of response time with a possible collision discover. The brand new program Honeywell is testing makes use of Computerized Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast, or ADS-B knowledge, a GPS for an airplane.
“It is normally an excellent working setting between pilots, air visitors management, airport administration,” Vining mentioned. “We get it completed safely, effectively and easily. However you can additionally see simply the slightest interruption, a bit variation, and issues can go improper in a short time.”
The aerospace large already gives one other suite of alerts that tells pilots in the event that they’re about to make a mistake like touchdown or taking off on a taxiway as an alternative of a runway, for instance, with visible alerts on a display screen in addition to aural warnings — “Warning! Taxiway!” The so-called Good X package deal additionally alerts pilots if flaps aren’t set appropriately, if the runway is just too quick, or if they’re coming in too excessive or too quick, amongst different conditions.
“As plane get nearer to the airports the place there are different airplanes which might be additionally flying low to the bottom, making an attempt to land, that is probably the most harmful spot to have a collision happen,” mentioned Jeff Guzzetti, a retired air security investigator with the NTSB and the FAA.
These alerts have been on Alaska Airlines planes for years and, extra not too long ago, Southwest Airlines has added them. Honeywell mentioned the alerts are at present flying on greater than 3,000 planes operated by 20 airways, however that is nonetheless restricted adoption with lots of of carriers working worldwide.
“Since we have carried out the software program, I can not consider an occasion the place we have had a runway incursion,” mentioned Dave Hunt, Southwest’s vp of security and safety and a 737 pilot.
American Airlines was additionally coaching its pilots on these alerts within the second quarter of the yr, in line with a lesson plan that was seen by CNBC. Final month, American obtained its first plane with the runway consciousness and different alerts on board, a spokeswoman mentioned, including that its Boeing 737 pilots have now been educated on the instruments.
The alerts aren’t required by regulators, however the FAA mentioned it’s “reviewing suggestions” from the Runway Security Alerting Subgroup “to find out subsequent steps,” referring to a gaggle of airline, aerospace, pilot union, authorities and trade officers that last year advisable new planes embrace extra superior cockpit alerts in case of situational consciousness points at airports.
“The alerts happen additional away from the runway in order that if there’s an plane on the runway, you are not having to make that call very low to the bottom,” mentioned Jon Websites, director of flight operations security at Alaska Airways.
The Swiss cheese mannequin
Honeywell’s check airplane throughout an illustration of latest anti-collision warning expertise.
Leslie Josephs/CNBC
America is the busiest aviation market on the planet, with 44,000 flights, carrying 3 million vacationers a day. Severe aviation accidents are uncommon, and deadly crashes are rarer nonetheless.
However a virtually 16-year streak with out a deadly incident was damaged on Jan. 29 when an Military Black Hawk helicopter collided into an American Airways regional jet that was moments away from touchdown at Washington Reagan Nationwide Airport, killing the 67 people aboard the 2 plane and elevating concerns about congested U.S. airspace to a fever pitch.
The aviation trade depends on a so-called Swiss cheese security mannequin, the place every slice offers safety however comes with holes which might be ideally lined when security measures are stacked on high of each other.
“Aviation is constructed on layers of security upon layers,” mentioned Websites at Alaska Airways.
Honeywell’s demonstration flight final month from Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport in Kansas Metropolis, Missouri, recreated an actual incident that passed off on a foggy morning in February 2023 in Austin, Texas, when a FedEx Boeing 767 airplane aborted touchdown seconds earlier than touching down on the identical runway from which an air visitors controller cleared a Southwest 737 to take off.
The FedEx pilot had seen the define of the Southwest airplane by the fog and pulled up and later landed safely. Each flights continued to their locations safely, however the two plane had gotten as shut as 150 ft aside, lower than the size of the FedEx 767, in line with federal security investigators.
Feyereisen mentioned Honeywell’s expertise may have supplied the FedEx pilots within the 2023 Austin incident 28 seconds of superior discover of visitors on the runway, once they solely had just a few moments to react, in line with a report from the NTSB.
Not but required
Engineers gather knowledge aboard a Honeywell check airplane.
Magdalena Petrova/CNBC
Feyereisen mentioned the brand new expertise could possibly be retrofitted on older plane and is on the market for brand spanking new jets.
“Typically, the software program prices tens of 1000’s of {dollars} [per plane], however not lots of of 1000’s of {dollars},” Feyereisen mentioned. “So in the event you’re [a] $150 million plane … it’s lower than a half a penny per passenger value to the operation.”
Southwest this yr added the software program to its fleet of about 800 Boeing 737s. It value between $20 million and $30 million to outfit the planes, Hunt mentioned.
“It’s cheaper than an accident,” he mentioned.
On Feb. 25, a Southwest airplane aborted its arrival after it was cleared to land at Chicago Halfway Worldwide Airport when a Bombardier Challenger 350 enterprise jet superior onto its runway, with the Southwest jet passing lower than 200 ft between the plane, earlier than safely touchdown after a go-around, in line with the NTSB.
Such shut calls “are very, very uncommon, however clearly they’re one thing which might be regarding and that we’d attempt to mitigate as a lot as attainable,” mentioned Hunt. The Honeywell software program is “very efficient at making certain our pilots are conscious of the place they’re on the airport” and “does a extremely good job of stopping inadvertent runway incursions whereas taxiing,” he added.
Limitations
A Honeywell check pilot performs a go-around due to visitors on the runway at Topeka Regional Airport in Kansas as a part of an illustration.
Erin Black/CNBC
When creating the warnings, Feyereisen mentioned it is key to not overwhelm pilots with an excessive amount of info, referred to as “nuisance alerts,” which may find yourself being a distraction from vital security duties reasonably than a assist.
“For those who’re blasting alerts by a cockpit speaker at low altitudes throughout a vital section of flight, corresponding to method to touchdown or takeoff, the place pilots’ consideration must be totally centered … you create too many distractions,” Southwest’s Hunt mentioned.
There are additionally limitations to the present alerts and the brand new packages Honeywell is testing. To keep away from in-air collisions, business plane are required to have what’s referred to as the Site visitors Alert and Collision Avoidance System, or TCAS, which helps them see visitors round them in shows within the cockpit. However that system is usually used for altitudes of at the least 1,000 ft.
That might not have essentially helped the pilots on the American Airways airplane that was beneath 400 ft within the deadly collision with the Black Hawk helicopter in January in Washington, D.C.
“We’re exploring alternate options to shut that hole the place you type of can merge TCAS and ADS-B-type info collectively,” Feyereisen mentioned.
Websites, the security director at Alaska, mentioned the D.C. crash was “an enormous, surprising occasion within the trade, however it’s simply, I feel, our monitor file by the final 50 years reveals that this can be a very, very uncommon occasion.”
“That is why we proceed as an trade to attempt to discover even higher expertise on the market and enhancements to the present expertise to maintain this from ever occurring and take the likelihood right down to as low a stage as attainable,” he mentioned. “I do not know if in any aviation system you may ever get to zero, however I imply, we’ll attempt to get as near zero likelihood as we are able to.”
— CNBC’s Erin Black contributed to this report.
