The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating a series of false airborne collision alerts received by multiple commercial flights preparing to land at Reagan National Airport over the weekend.
All alerts came just a few miles from a fatal air collision between a US Airlines plane and a US Army Black Hawk helicopter on January 29th.
Several squadrons reported that they had received mysterious alerts from the traffic collision avoidance system on Saturday despite the lack of other aircraft at the time, the FAA said in a statement Monday.
“We were about 1,200 feet. [when the TCAS said] According to audio captured by Liveatc.net, the pilot of the Republic's airline told Control Tower just after 9am on Saturday.
“It's happening all morning. If you see anything, let me know. No one has seen it except TCAS,” Tower Air Traffic Controller warned of a flight in another Republic.
“Yeah, we got a bit of something there. At TCAS, we said it was 600 feet above us, and we didn't see anything,” the pilot replied later.
Pilots on at least a dozen flights reported that they had received clearly unfounded alerts. CBS News It has been reported.
According to the news station, one electric shock was reported just after 9am, with six similar false alerts within 11 minutes of each other.
Ground air traffic control and TCAS operate separately from each other. TCAS searches nearby airspace via radio frequencies from other aircraft transponders, and uses these to detect possible collisions and helps pilots move safely.
Variables such as low altitude and landing approach that can interfere with radio signals complicate the problem in the system. However, on many planes it is unusual to receive false warnings at just one weekend and one specific location.
“We'll report traffic at 11am. Did anything come out here?” A PSA Airlines pilot asked Control Tower on Saturday.
“Negative… there is no known traffic between you and the field,” the Control Tower responded.
Still, the pilot went cautiously, with many choosing to cancel their landing “as a result of an alert,” officials said.
