A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/876590
Governance of the NSAL has been the biggest concern. As orig inally conceived by SBS management, the lag time between identifying a safety - compromising event and reacting could be days or weeks. NATCA is working on streamlining this process, potentially via an automated mechanism. The end result needs to be an effec tive means of identifying bad actors and reacting as close to real time as possible. Article 114 discussions resulted in agreement that B787 aircraft would be placed on the NSAL as soon as possible. These aircraft have a latent avionics issue that causes false position information to be displayed to the controller. This has alarmed several facilities and caused both SCT and NCT to demote ADS - B in their sort cell priorities. United has indicated that all of their B787 aircraft have been updated per the late st Service Bulletin. AFS is working on confirmation before these aircraft are removed from the NSAL. Two events in August highlighted the inability to react effectively or efficiently to identify avionics problems. On Aug . 9, an ADS - B equipped Embraer 170 demonstrated extremely erratic tracking within Houston Approach. The track was showing a zigzag or starburst behavior and actually split into four separate tracks at one point; three of which had identical full data blocks. The SBS Performance Monitor did flag the aircraft as non - compliant, but this data is currently only used post event. Flight Standards indicated they would quickly reach out to the operator. On Aug . 16, the same aircraft repeated it's bad tracking behavior at Potomac Approach on while on Final to Dulles. The tracking left the facility so uncertain of the aircraft's true position that they stopped all departures. This event was also found to be highlighted by the Performance Monitor post event. The aircraft's avionics issue appears to be r esolved, but the procedures to react to these events remain a problem. Advanced IM American Airlines leadership still hasn't made the decision to support the funding required for AIRS to move forward though all parties all still optimistic. Paired Approa ch work is still moving forward. Development of Controller Display Features needed to support the application as well as the overarching A - IM ConOps work still in progress. Discussed A - IM safety cases as part of the A - IM Safety Workshop to include assumpt ions made on controllers' ability to detect discrepancies/errors with the FIM equipment in an A - IM environment. Also, discussed tools needed to better catch any possible errors. Reviewed data for IM aircraft pairing and the ADSB range options researched t o accomplish pairings. Discussed the possible required ranges needed to conduct a successful IM operation with consideration to TRACON airspace size. ASDE - X Tech Refresh: Due to recent events in the NAS, there is a renewed interest in taxiway alerts for t he system, which was started by the Runway Safety office last year. There is now some backtracking that is being done due to the lack of involvement from AJV - 7 from the beginning. Dan Hamilton is actively involved in the entire process to ensure the integr ity of the system remains in place. Concerns regarding false alerts, late alerts, incorrect alerts and no alerts are being discussed in addition to other possible mitigations for this overlying issue.