Well MIT _Can_ Think On Occasion … But Why make Small Planes Safer Than Airliners?

Monday, October 16, 2006

Tracking Small Planes with GPS

The last quarter-mile of Corey Lidle’s fatal flight in Manhattan went unrecorded by radar. GPS technology could allow more precise accident reconstruction.

By David Talbot

In the wake of the small-plane crash into a Manhattan apartment building last week, politicians and the public have focused on the potential dangers of unmonitored small-plane traffic around New York City.

But a technology question arises: Why don’t these planes–which aren’t required to carry “black box” voice and data recorders–at least required to save their GPS position information, for more accurate accident reconstruction?

The plane that crashed, killing N.Y. Yankees pitcher Corey Lidle and flight instructor Tyler Stanger, was last seen by conventional radar units about a quarter-mile away from the accident site, in the middle of a U-turn, at an altitude of about 500 feet, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. That leaves a lot of data missing about what happened in the final plunge before it exploded against the building.

Inexpensive equipment could fill that void…. Indeed it could, read more here:

Much of my adult life I have had to contend with supposed “brainiacs” from MIT. More precisely, MITRE, a “not for profit” corporation connected with MIT. Note: there’s a huge difference between anon-profit and a not for profit … subject for a whole other blog post.

The recent accident involving Yankee pitcher Corey Lidle has of course created the usual bursts of semi-informed speculation from the mass media. This piece from the MIT Technology Review is better than some. The question on everyone’s lips of course is, “what happened”? The data to tell investigators what happened is, as in most air crashes, woefully lacking. Two significant sources of information are either non-existent or so scanty as to be almost pure speculation. In the year 2006 this is inexcusable and fully correctable … if we didn’t have to wait for someone to reinvent the wheel.

Cockpit Voice Data: Although there is no guarantee that anything was said between the two pilots it’s very possible there were verbal clues at the last minute that would give us insight. Also the background sounds on many cockpit voice recorder tapes have given valuable information to investigators in the past. But this is 2006! Why settle for voice? A simple digital solid-state video camera set up to capture the last 20 minutes of flight, continuously would cost only a few hundred dollars. It doesn’t have to be inside a crash-protected case as commercial cockpit voice recorders are, because in 90% plus of crashes the camera, being all solid-state would have recoverable data from the memory chips deep inside.

Flight Performance Data: To explore this aspect thoroughly one needs to look at the antiquated, totally inadequate system our FAA continues to promote as the backbone technology for the future … RADAR. RAdio Detection And Ranging is an invention that dates back to the 1930’s. Guglielmo Marconi was still alive, for goodness sake. The Ford Trimotor was still in use on some airlines. RADAR was a tremendous achievement and may well have been one of the winning factors in the Battle of Britain … but we don’t send pilots off to air combat in Spitfires, we don’t drive model A’s and we don’t have a huge console model RCA radio in the living room with a “tuning eye” to get better reception of Amos and Andy.

RADAR works by sending out a beam of energy from a rotating antenna and measuring the resulting reflected signal that bounces off anything in the beam’s path. It takes a tremendous investment in ground infrastructure to have the limited radar coverage we have in this country today and many would be shocked if they knew just how little of the country is really covered. “Pure” radar has many limitations so all airliners and many smaller aircraft use a device called a transponder that sends a signal back to any radar that “paints” the aircraft. These transponders aren’t cheap, they costs thousands of dollars and they only have value when the aircraft is already within radar range.

I fully concur with the MIT thought that small aircraft should be equipped with GPS recording of track and performance information. In today’s world many already have such a basic capability. But I think it’s silly to neglect the benefits of tracking all aircraft with GPS. Basic GPS receivers that could do a 90%+ solution (again the heavy and sometimes useless crash data recorder “boxes” are not needed) would add tremendously to our knowledge to analyze accidents that happen and help protect against future accidents.

Also, sending aircraft positional data to the ATC network via GPS rather that the present-day kludge of radar and transponders would be orders of magnitude cheaper and more effective.

Can we please move out of the 1930’s prior to the 2030′?