High-tech system could have averted jet crash, experts say

EVERETT — Honeywell test pilot Markus Johnson taxis his plane toward a runway at Paine Field when over his radio headset a female voice announces, "Approaching one-six right."

The advisory is not a courtesy call by a helpful air-traffic controller at the airport. It's from an onboard software program that, like a patron saint, watches out for the safety of pilots and their passengers.

Aviation-safety experts say that if Comair Flight 5191 had been outfitted with runway-awareness technology, it might have helped the pilots catch their fatal error last Sunday when they took off on the wrong runway at Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Ky. The plane crashed beyond the end of the runway that was too short for the regional jet, killing 49 of the 50 people aboard.

The runway-awareness system also could help reduce the probability of runway incursions, collisions and other mishaps on the ground at several hundred airports served by the approximately 8,000 planes in the U.S. commercial fleet, according to aviation experts, who say government-led runway-safety efforts are lagging.

The computer-generated information provided in the Runway Awareness and Advisory System, which is made by Honeywell Aerospace and based on Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, corroborates Johnson's understanding of precisely where he is on the airfield.

He lines up his Beechcraft King Air on Runway 16R for takeoff, much like a motorist would follow directions that were mapped out to go straight or turn left in a car equipped with a GPS navigation system.

"On runway one-six right," the voice advisory confirms, and the twin-engine business plane darts down the runway and lifts off over the water and heads toward Whidbey Island.

The advisories are "like having a helper in the cockpit to tap you on the shoulder and say, 'Does this make sense to you?' " said Johnson, director of aerospace flight operations at Honeywell. "If everything doesn't add up in your head, you then stop the plane and review your flight plan and checklist."

Acquiring this extra margin of runway safety is as easy as inserting a compact disc into a computer. The $18,000 price tag is modest when compared with the value of a jet aircraft, and the loss of life and hundreds of million of dollars in litigation after a major fatal accident.

The technology is used by only five airlines worldwide — Alaska Airlines, FedEx, Air France, Lufthansa and Malaysia Airlines — though United Airlines is studying whether to join that list. "We are pleased by what we have seen so far," United spokesman Brandon Borrman said.

The Honeywell system, which has been available for three years but is not federally mandated on commercial or private aircraft, would have given the Comair pilots an additional alert.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has encountered setbacks for more than a decade researching and developing technology to improve the monitoring of aircraft moving across airport runways and taxiways.

And budget constraints have delayed widespread implementation of an airport-based system the FAA says will help prevent collisions between airplanes by alerting to potential dangers. Known as Airport Surface and Detection Equipment Model X (ASDE-X), it will replace a system that has been prone to false alarms.