Summary:
Loss of Air Traffic Control (ATC) radio communication is considered a high consequence failure due to the potential increase in mid-air collision risk. An analysis was conducted to determine how quickly collision risk would increase after a full ATC communications failure, or blackout, to determine requirements for backup communication systems. The analysis was conducted for the enroute high-altitude environment and also for terminal area operations in the New York City region. Communication failure simulations were run every 15 minutes using 7 days of ETMS data for the entire U.S. airspace, and using 5 days of PDARS data for New York City region. Conflict rates were observed to increase beyond the baseline level within 1 minute of the simulated communication failure and to have increased by at least a factor of 4 within 5 minutes of the communication failure indicating the requirement for immediate backup ATC communications.
Keywords: Air Transportation; Air Traffic Management; Safety analysis; Mid-air collisions; Communications failure
JCR Impact Factor and WoS quartile: 1,000 (2013); 5,000 - Q1 (2023)
DOI reference:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ast.2013.04.012
Published on paper: August 2013.
Published on-line: May 2013.
Citation:
R. Palacios, R.J. Hansman, Short-term consequences of radio communications blackout on the U.S. National Airspace System. Aerospace Science and Technology. Vol. 29, pp. 426 - 433, August 2013. [Online: May 2013]
