Pilots: FAA taking too long on useful bird radar

[February 03, 2009]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government is taking too long to develop a useful bird-detecting radar that might prevent incidents like last month's dramatic splashdown of a US Airways airliner, officials for the nation's largest pilots union said Monday.

It's been 10 years since the National Transportation Safety Board recommended the Federal Aviation Administration develop a radar system that enables airline pilots to avoid birds. The FAA is testing experimental systems at some airports, but agency officials caution the technology is unproven and still needs years of refinements.

"That is not a satisfactory timeframe," Rory Kay, a Boeing 767 captain and the Air Line Pilots Association's safety chairman, told reporters. ALPA included the bird problem among the union's top safety priorities for 2009.

Radar has been capable of detecting birds for many years, but to be useful to pilots it must also identify the altitude of the birds and their distance from an airport. Most collisions between birds and airliners take place under 3,000 feet when aircraft are taking off or landing.

If birds are "1,000 feet and five miles from the airport, they're not an issue," Kay said. "I'm going to be well over 1,000 feet by the time I've gone five miles from the airport. But if they're at 1,000 feet three miles from the airport, they're right on the flight path if I'm making an approach."

US Airways Flight 1549 had taken off from LaGuardia Airport in New York on Jan. 15 only minutes before the pilot reported birds had crippled both engines and then ditched the plane in the Hudson River. All 155 people aboard survived.

FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency has been working on the radar, but there are many technological hurdles.

"The challenge with the bird radar like many of the technology solutions we develop and field is when you operate in a commercial environment you have to have a very high level of reliability," Brown said. "In many cases these systems take time to tune to the reliability we need."

The union said its top safety priority is an overhaul of regulations on the number of consecutive hours airline and air cargo pilots can be expected to fly, as well as providing adequate rest periods.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, air travel plummeted and airlines negotiated labor concessions that often have pilots working at or near FAA's regulatory limits. The issue has been a sore point between pilots unions and their airlines.

"We are open to reassessing the regulations; however, it must be grounded in science," said Victoria Day, a spokeswoman for the Air Transport Association, an airline industry trade association.

[Associated Press; By JOAN LOWY]

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