Indiana: FAA Investigating Possible Near Miss During Radar Outage

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Nov 1, 2000 - 11:18 PM

FAA Investigating Possible Near Miss During Radar Outage By Charles Wilson Associated Press Writer

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Authorities are investigating whether two airplanes came too close to each other after an air traffic control center lost radar and radio communications. The aircraft may have had a near-miss during a Tuesday power outage, according to a controller at the Indianapolis Air Route Traffic Control Center, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said.

Standard separation of aircraft is five miles horizontally and 1,000 feet vertically.

"It was close enough that made us very concerned," said Tom Arnholt, department manager for Advanced Drainage Systems in Columbus, Ohio, which owns one of the planes involved. "There was a breakdown in the system that should not have occurred."

The power outage left the center at the Indianapolis International Airport without radar from about 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday. The cause of the outage was under investigation.

The center handles air traffic for parts of Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia and Virginia.

Arnholt said the incident occurred about 4:20 p.m. near Newcomerstown, Ohio, about 90 miles east of Columbus. Both planes were traveling at about 28,000 feet, he said.

Arnholt said his company's plane was a light jet known as a Citation, with seven people on board, including two pilots. The pilots changed altitude to avoid a crash after getting a warning from the plane's collision avoidance system, he said.

He did not know the type of the other plane involved.

While the radar was out, controllers relied on a prototype system that allows them to track an aircraft's position based on its flight plan and other data, said Ed Locke, president of the local chapter of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

Locke, who works at the center but was not on duty during the outage, said the incident was "much worse" than originally reported.

"We had some people really scrambling and sweating there for a couple hours," he said.

Cory said 197 flights nationwide were delayed because of the outage. President Clinton's flight on Air Force One from Louisville, Ky. to New York City had to follow a commercial air route, rather than its usual straight path. Nov 1, 2000 - 11:18 PM

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGA3U2OX1FC.html

-- Carl Jenkins (somewherepress@aol.com), November 02, 2000


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