Sometimes, while waiting for my plane to pull back from the gate, marking the start of another insufferable domestic flight, I find myself getting scared. I look out the window at the rows of planes jamming the taxiways and gate areas and I think to myself, I don't know how the pilot is going to find his way out of this mess. Evidently, he's not always sure either.
Navigating America's gridlocked airports is like trying to keep track of Angelina Jolie's pregnancies, which is why Alaska Airlines is equipping its entire fleet with what is essentially a GPS system for planes. The Honeywell designed technology helps guide pilots around airport runways and taxiways, and is a software update to a system that is already used to keep planes from crashing into mountains and what Honeywell refers to as "other obstacles."
Much like a car navigation system, RAAS uses GPS to pinpoint the location of planes on the ground at a crowded airport. Pilots hear audible alerts when they approach and enter taxiways and runways, maybe something like "hey handsome, you've arrived at taxiway 31L." The system also makes sure that planes are on the correct runway, that they have enough room to take off, and that they're not rolling down the runway too quickly.
At $20,000 a pop, RAAS isn't cheap, but aviation experts say it could prevent a repeat of some of the more gruesome runway incursions of the last 40 years. In 2001, an MD80 crashed into a Cessna Citation that had wandered across the runway, killing 114 people. Thirty-four people were killed in 1991 when a US Airways 737 crashed into a small plane on the runway at LAX, and in the worst aircraft accident in history, two 747s collided on a runway in the Canary Islands in 1977, killing 583 people.
Despite the price, Alaska isn't the only one installing RAAS -- Honeywell recently announced that Lufthansa and Emirates have also put in orders for the technology.
Photo by Flickr user capt.spock
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