Ventus,
We'll have to wait and see, but...
In addition, where most aircraft have multiple redundancy for most systems, this is not so for TCAS, most aircraft only have ONE transponder fitted. If that transponder fails in flight, that aircraft, and all others around it, are in a much higher (statistically) state of potential - or actual danger of collision.
Not really. Most aircraft have 1 TCAS unit and 2 mode S SSR transponders.
But since you have 2 aircraft involved in the collision, and either TCAS can provide adequate safety as long as the other aircraft still has at least 1 SSR transponder working.
The "system" is the kit in
both aircraft, not the kit in
one aircraft. So in fact, there quite a lot of redundancy there. e.g. you could lose a TCAS unit in one aircraft, along with a transponder, and lose a transponder in the other aircraft, and still get a safe outcome.
pb
p.s. Before we start throwing money at more redudancy we ought to be making sure we are getting the best out of the kit we have. I remain convinced many TCAS training programs pay only lip service to the overall issues. I can think of many really nasty TCAS incidents caused by lack of crew knowledge / training (see note below) but far fewer (and certainly far fewer recently) caused by technical malfunction.
note: lack of crew knowledge / training is not equivalent to lack of professionalism, so don't go all defensive on me. But making sure there is robust training in place is a regulatory flight ops function, and I am not convinced it is happening globally. Just look at the misconceptions that crop up every time a TCAS related thread happens here for example.
night all
pb