FALSE ALARM CREATES CLOSE CALL IN SKIES OVER VALLEY.Byline: Eric Wahlgren Daily News Staff Writer A Southwest Airlines This article is about the American airline. For the former Japanese airline, see Japan Transocean Air. For the British airline, see Air Southwest. Southwest Airlines Co. jet on approach to Burbank Airport came too close for comfort to two other aircraft after the 737's anti-collision system sounded a false alarm, causing the pilot to abruptly climb, officials said Thursday. The plane nosed up 1,600 feet after a device apparently being tested on the ground in Van Nuys set off the plane's crash-avoidance warning system on Friday at about 10:50 a.m., said Kirsten Kendrick, a Southwest Airlines spokeswoman. Kendrick said shortly after it climbed, the aircraft's traffic alert and collision avoidance system (1) See adaptive cruise control. (2) A passenger car system that detects objects on the road that the driver may not be able to see. Using radar or infrared sensors, distant objects, such as a deer crossing the road at night or in a fog, are projected onto the , or TCAS TCAS Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System TCAS Traffic Collision Avoidance System TCAS T-Carrier Administration System TCAS Terminal Control Address Space (MVS/TSO) TCAS Technical Control and Analysis System , instructed the pilot to change the plane's position because two smaller planes were flying nearby. One of the other planes, a twin-engine Cessna in the sky above the Southwest jet, hit some turbulence after crossing the jet's wake, but there was no other fallout from the incident, Kendrick said. Kendrick dismissed earlier reports in the media that said the Cessna had plunged as much as 1,000 feet during the airborne traffic jam. ``We have no indication that anything like that happened,'' Kendrick said. ``The pilot of the Cessna said he had experienced a little turbulence and bounced around a little bit.'' Flight 1451 from Las Vegas Las Vegas (läs vā`gəs), city (1990 pop. 258,295), seat of Clark co., S Nev.; inc. 1911. It is the largest city in Nevada and the center of one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the United States. , carrying 56 passengers and five crew members, landed without any mishap (language) MISHAP - An early system on the IBM 1130. [Listed in CACM 2(5):16, May 1959]. , Kendrick said. ``All the customers on board were unaware that anything had happened and no complaints were filed,'' Kendrick said. Mitch Barker, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), component of the U.S. Department of Transportation that sets standards for the air-worthiness of all civilian aircraft, inspects and licenses them, and regulates civilian and military air traffic through its air traffic control in Seattle, said the agency is investigating the incident. Barker did not go so far as to characterize the incident as a near collision. The Southwest jet was flying east toward the airport about 2 miles west of Van Nuys Airport Van Nuys Airport (IATA: VNY, ICAO: KVNY, FAA LID: VNY) is a public airport located in Van Nuys, California in the San Fernando Valley, within the Los Angeles city limits. when its TCAS system went off, leading the pilot to put the plane in a climb from 3,000 to 4,600 feet, Barker said. The plane later descended to 4,000 feet after the pilot learned of two other aircraft in the area - one was flying south at 4,000 feet about 2 miles east of Van Nuys Airport and the other was flying at 5,000 feet at an undisclosed location, Barker said. Barker said the TCAS system is installed on all planes that carry 30 or more passengers. He added that he did not know how often the system triggers a false alarm. Kendrick said the airline traced the warning signal to a transponder A receiver/transmitter on a communications satellite. It receives a microwave signal from earth (uplink), amplifies it and retransmits it back to earth at a different frequency (downlink). A satellite has several transponders. that was being tested in a grounded plane at Van Nuys Airport. |
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