LaGuardia runway crash highlights importance of transponders on airport vehicles. So why aren't they everywhere?
After the deadly runway collision at LaGuardia Airport back in March, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says it will be installing transponders on emergency vehicles there as well as at John F. Kennedy Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport.
Those transponders can help air traffic controllers prevent collisions like the one that took place at LaGuardia.
How the transponders help prevent crashes
Denver International is the biggest airport in the country, with six runways on 53 square miles of land. To help keep trach of such a large property, the airport uses transponders. Every airside operations vehicle and firetruck is equipped with one, said Denver International director of operations Dave Cunningham.
"Very simple unit," Cunningham said. "It gives the visibility into who that, who each vehicle is. Things like their speed, exact location, and that sort of thing around the airport."
Denver International also uses monitors in the trucks so airport personnel and firefighters can see planes and trucks on the runway, including themselves. The FAA's air traffic controllers can see all of that too, in part because the transponders send data to an antenna on the tower.
The white, dome-shaped antenna is called Airport Surface Detection Equipment, also known as an ASDE-X antenna. The FAA has installed them at about three dozen airports nationwide to help alert controllers to potential collisions. When the Port Authority fire truck collided with the Air Canada jet at LaGuardia, however, the ASDE-X system there did not alert, the NTSB said. Two pilots aboard the plane were killed.
The NTS said none of the trucks near the runway had transponders.
"Purely for safety"
ASDE-X can still detect some vehicles without transponders, but transponders provide even more information, such as the speed of the truck and a call sign to help identify them.
Denver International's monitors in their trucks allow not just controllers, but drivers of other airport trucks, to see those call signs.
The FAA doesn't require transponders in airport trucks but recommends them, and has been telling airports they can use federal grant money to install them. The agency doesn't use transponders in all of their own airport vehicles yet, but they announced a $16 million plan recently to equip them all during the next year.
The Port Authority announced after the LaGuardia crash its now planning to use transponders at all three of its major airports and had already launched pilot program at Newark last December.
At Denver International, they've been using them for 13 years.
"Purely for safety. That's what it boils down to. Being able to know where vehicles, having the air traffic controller have the ability to just look at a screen and see who that is that he or she is seeing out the window," Cunningham said.
35 airports have ASDE-X
CBS News New York asked the 35 airports with ASDE-X what they do, and 26 told us they use at least some transponders, including major hubs like LAX, O'Hare, Atlanta and Reagan National in Washington, DC. A few of those 26, including Boston, Milwaukee and Denver, said any truck without a transponder needs prior permission to go near a runway so staff can closely monitor them. Seattle, Salt Lake City and Dallas-Fort Worth say they're planning to install them, like JFK and LaGuardia. We did not hear back from airports in Providence, R.I. and Honolulu. Orange County, California and Louisville said they don't use them.
For a complete wrapup of what each airport told us, see below.
"It's all about the dollars"
Rick Castaldo is a retired FAA engineer who helped install ASDE-X about 20 years ago.
So why isn't every vehicle that goes on a runway equipped with a transponder?
"Seems like a no-brainer doesn't it?" Castaldo said. "It's all about the dollars."
Castaldo suggests regulators take a sterner approach.
"What they could do, in my opinion, is strongly encourage airports that, you're not gonna get this grant money unless you force this equipage," Castaldo said.
The Port Authority wouldn't agree to an interview with us, but said it's currently working out the timeline and budget for putting transponders in vehicles, including all of its airport firetrucks.The agency said in an earlier statement that it's working with the NTSB's LaGuardia investigation and "The preliminary findings ... reflect how multiple safety systems and procedures interact" and "The NTSB says the red runway warning lights--like stop signs for crossing traffic--were on until about three seconds before the crash."
The controller who cleared the jet and the truck for the same runway warned the truck seconds before the crash, the NTSB said in its preliminary report. The controller could be heard telling the truck "stop, stop, stop."
Back in March, the NTSB said a transponder could've helped.
"And it would have been helpful--when you have a radar when you have a radar target. It is, it does not provide you with the information that you need like it would for an aircraft as a controller," NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said at the time.
ASDE-X not built for pedestrians
The FAA says ASDE-X was not designed to protect pedestrians, such as the man who walked onto a runway this month in what the medical examiner says was a suicide.
The FAA would not agree to an on-camera interview, but it says airports nationwide are showing interest in using federal grant money for ASDE-X transponders or similar technology. The agency says a total of about 50 airports across the country use transponders for either ASDE-X or other systems designed to prevent collisions.
"With the transponder equipment, and our set of rules and regulations and procedures and policies in place, we're at a reduced risk," Cunningham said.
The NTSB is still investigating the cause of the crash at LaGuardia and the agency has not said whether a transponder would've prevented it.
