PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - USA flights stopped. FAA computer outage.
Old 28th Jan 2023, 04:00
  #74 (permalink)  
MechEngr
 
Join Date: Oct 2019
Location: USA
Posts: 864
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Keep in mind that one driver for NOTAM reform was the near accident of landing on an occupied taxiway in spite of a NOTAM indicating one of the parallel runways was closed, therefore not lighted, and the pilots lined up where they should not have been because the taxiway had lights along it. The crew was faulted for not reading all the NOTAMs, one of which mentioned the closed runway, with the NTSB recommendation to somehow fix that.

The main obstacle is that operators are inconsistent in their notation, making parsing by software of the NOTAMs unreliable for every entry, and missing even one can be a problem. In many industries some service would start up offering that translation and fixing errors as they are noted, but the liability for an error could be in the billions of dollars, so where's the upside? If it was easy it would have happened long ago. The legislation is the sort that assumes it is easy but, if so, why the lack of showing their homework towards a solution? I would guess they also want to avoid liability if it goes wrong. Better to pass a law forcing others to take that responsibility.

The FAA adoption of the ICAO schema is to offset some of this by adding a classification to each entry and to create a class of permanent NOTAMS, such as for the poles, but also for birds, and other uncontrolled hazards. This allows sorting into "What's New" and "What's a direct concern," but it doesn't relieve the operators of having to put down poles and birds - whether they are essentially extorted to do so or just don't want to be sued for failing to mention a hazard that may not appear on navigation charts.

My preference is a system similar to the ADSB system with a mandate of ADSB-In for all manned aircraft. Then hazards could be given their own identifiers and their coordinates broadcast from the airports. However the FAA hasn't even wanted to mandate ADSB-Out for purposes of tracking and avoidance for all manned aircraft. Add in some width and length dimensions and obstacles like powerlines can be included.
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