Latest news with #midaircollision
Bloomberg
3 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Democrats Unveil Bill Responding to Midair Collision Near DC
Senate Democrats introduced legislation Thursday they said would boost aviation safety following a deadly midair collision near Washington earlier this year. The bill, sponsored by several senators, including Maria Cantwell of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, is the first major piece of legislation proposed since the crash between a US Army helicopter and an American Airlines Group Inc. regional jet that killed 67 people in January.
Fox News
24-05-2025
- General
- Fox News
Misplaced antenna caused military controllers to lose contact with Black Hawk near DCA: report
An Army general recently confirmed that military air traffic controllers lost contact with an Army helicopter, prompting two commercial planes to perform go-arounds to avoid crashing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), where a midair collision in January killed 67 people. On May 1, a Delta Air Lines Airbus A319 and a Republic Airways Embraer E170 at DCA were told to perform go-arounds due to a U.S. Army Black Hawk Priority Air Transport helicopter inbound to the Pentagon Army Heliport, according to statements from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Brig. Gen. Matthew Braman, director of Army Aviation, said a temporary control tower antenna placed in the wrong location caused military air traffic controllers to lose contact with the Black Hawk helicopter for 20 seconds, according to a report from The Associated Press. Even though the helicopter should have emitted its exact location, FAA officials reportedly told Braman the data received was "inconclusive," varying up to three-quarters of a mile. "It certainly led to confusion of air traffic control of where they were," Braman told the AP. The antenna, which was set up while a new control tower was being built, has since been relocated to the Pentagon rooftop, the outlet reported. Chris Senn, the FAA's assistant administrator for government and industry affairs, initially said in an email shared with Politico that the go-arounds could have been avoided had the Black Hawk traveled west to the heliport instead of taking "a scenic route." Army Public Affairs said in a statement its internal review found "no deviations from approved flight paths" and "no risk of intersecting air traffic." The Army claims its helicopter, which was not carrying any passengers, was continuously broadcasting via its Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast (ADS-B) Out system throughout the flight, and the go-arounds were performed "out of an apparent abundance of caution." "The first go-around occurred before PAT 23 arrived at the Pentagon helipad and was the result of an issue with sequencing of air traffic by DCA Tower," the Army said in the statement. "The second occurred during PAT 23's subsequent traffic pattern and was based on conflicting positional data from legacy tracking systems." The close calls came less than one month after the FAA increased staffing and oversight for the DCA air traffic control team. The Army said it supports ongoing efforts to modernize air traffic systems, including initiatives led by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to address "inconsistencies caused by legacy technologies." "We are committed to safe and professional aviation operations in all airspace," Braman said in the statement. "We continue to work closely with the FAA to update procedures prior to resuming Pentagon flight operations in support of national security missions." After the May 1 incident, Duffy took to X to share his frustration. "Our helicopter restrictions around DCA are crystal clear. In addition to investigations from @NTSB and @FAANews, I'll be talking to the @DeptofDefense to ask why the hell our rules were disregarded," Duffy wrote. "Safety must ALWAYS come first. We just lost 67 souls! No more helicopter rides for VIPs or unnecessary training in a congested DCA airspace full of civilians. Take a taxi or Uber – besides most VIPs have black car service." On May 8, Duffy announced a plan to build a new "state-of-the-art" traffic control system that will equip locations with better technology to reduce outages, improve efficiency and reinforce safety. The announcement came after recent outages at Newark Liberty Internal Airport, which Duffy attributed to the previous administration's transfer of airspace control from New York to Philadelphia. The NTSB said in an email to Fox News Digital it is still investigating the May 1 incident. "We can't comment on an open investigation," a spokesperson wrote. The FAA did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Telegraph
21-05-2025
- Telegraph
Why pilots fear that airplanes will be the next target of cyber hackers
When the words 'traffic, traffic' blared out of the flight deck speakers, the pilots immediately tried to avoid the mid-air collision they feared was imminent. Yet there was nothing nearby, except for a rogue radio signal. Nonetheless, the pilots of the half-dozen airliners who received the alerts in short succession reacted as they had been trained to do: they followed the computer-generated commands that told them to climb or dive. The fact that there was nothing in the nearby skies – no collision course, no errant helicopter about to cause a headline-grabbing disaster – was discovered only after both official and media-led investigations into the incidents earlier this year at America's Ronald Reagan National Airport, near Washington, DC. Fears are now rising that the onboard system which falsely told those pilots that a collision was imminent was not only deliberately spoofed – as such an attack is known in the industry – but that malicious people around the world, such as the teenage hackers wreaking havoc on high-street retailers, have been taking notes. And only in January this year, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency felt it was necessary to issue a warning about the growing threat. 'The idea scares the s--- out of me,' one long-haul pilot tells The Telegraph. 'In the worst case, it's high severity, even up to possible hull loss,' he adds, using the aviation euphemism for total destruction of an airliner. Understanding what happened at Ronald Reagan National Airport, and the scale of the risk that copycats could potentially cause, means learning about the system that was targeted. The Traffic Collision Advisory Service, or TCAS (pronounced 'tee-cass') for short, is one of the myriad safety technologies built into all modern airliners. Devised in the wake of numerous mid-air collisions, including most notably one in 1978 over the Grand Canyon that left 144 people dead, the system alerts pilots that they're on a collision course with another aircraft. TCAS works by having each aircraft fitted with a radio transponder that broadcasts its location, height, speed and direction. An onboard computer receives those signals from nearby aeroplanes and does some maths to work out whether or not a collision course exists. Audio and visual warnings are generated in the flight deck to alert the pilots if that is the case. Yet warnings are rarely enough on their own. History is littered with examples of catastrophes unfolding after human operators distrusted what their machines were telling them. Commercial aviation's most famous disaster, the crash of Air France flight 447 in 2009, saw a confused pilot ignoring cockpit warnings and plunging his aircraft into the icy waters of the South Atlantic, taking 228 lives in total. As a result of those types of incidents, humans are now trained to take action when safety systems tell them to do so. When a collision course risks becoming lethal, TCAS says pilots must climb, or descend, to avoid catastrophe. All airline pilots are trained to react instinctively to these commands. Evidence so far suggests TCAS works well. One incident last October saw an American Airlines Boeing 737 avoiding a mid-air collision with an errant Cessna light aircraft after the latter's pilot turned directly into the airliner's path as it prepared to land. Alerted by TCAS, the Boeing's pilots were able to climb away from the potentially lethal encounter – albeit missing the light aeroplane by only 400 feet, a hair's breadth in aviation terms. Cyber security researchers have looked at TCAS in detail over recent years to see whether TCAS is vulnerable to spoofing – the art of broadcasting fake signals from a make-believe aeroplane – and how difficult it would be. 'I'll be honest with you,' says Ken Munro of cybersecurity firm Pen Test Partners. 'Back in the days when I was flying more frequently, you'd often see things like miscalibrated transponders on a light aircraft, misreporting and then broadcasting the wrong data and causing weird alerts for commercials operating several thousand feet above.' In Munro's view, cock-up rather than conspiracy was the cause of the Washington, DC mystery alerts. Online speculation suggests that perhaps an aeroplane being serviced at the airport accidentally broadcast a signal that was received above. Could someone malicious have been trying to tamper with flights over the US capital city? 'It's technically possible,' Munro concedes. His firm's research, in a simulated environment, showed in 2020 that TCAS spoofing could make airliners climb or descend in predictable ways. Manipulating airliners not in accordance with the wishes of pilots or air traffic controllers, but someone else altogether, bodes ill for flight safety. Meanwhile, the long-haul pilot, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not an official spokesman for his employer, painted a picture of what might be happening in the flight deck in that situation. 'If you spoof [TCAS] so the plane thinks it's still going to collide, you [can] get the plane to change a crazy altitude before the pilots realise what's going on,' he said. 'At cruise speed, there's no way you'll see the [other, fake] plane whether or not there's a spoof. 'And when or how do you even know if it's fake? For all we know, the other dude is just ignoring his TCAS instructions and diving too,' he added. In this situation, the pilot said, he would expect to have to 'hand-fly' without autopilot, a potentially risky manoeuvre at high altitude and high speed. 'I've seen guys in the simulator try to fly it like a normal low level [manoeuvre] and sent their planes careening,' he continued, adding that this could rapidly overwhelm the two crew found in airliner cockpits today. 'So you've got one pilot completely out of the picture, just trying to keep the plane level, and the other guy is trying to figure out what the f--- is going on,' he explained. 'Meanwhile, there's no protection from any other planes because you're ignoring TCAS. In high-density airspace like the North Atlantic, Europe or North America you could end up colliding with someone else.' Yet aviation safety is built around multiple layers, and if TCAS is giving false alerts, other systems provide back-ups for pilots to continue flying safely. Munro points to a study carried out by Oxford University in early 2020. Thirty commercial pilots in a simulator were exposed to fake TCAS warnings to see how they reacted. Matt Smith, the lead researcher, told tech news website The Register at the time: 'We know these attacks exist but we don't know what would happen if they occurred.' His findings were instructive. Every pilot responded to the TCAS alerts – at first. Then they began muting the system, turning off the 'climb now / descend now' demands, and following other indications instead. Smith added: 'If industry engaged with penetration testing on these systems and tried to fully map out what the attacks might be, what they presented to the pilots as, they should at least be able to give a list of situations that might come about as a result of an attack.' Official attention to what used to be the theoretical musings of computer security technicians has improved during the intervening five years. In their January bulletin, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said: 'By utilising software-defined radios and a custom low-latency processing pipeline, RF signals with spoofed location data can be transmitted to aircraft targets. This can lead to the appearance of fake aircraft on displays and potentially trigger undesired Resolution Advisories (RAs).' In plain English, off-the-shelf electronics equipment and freely downloadable software, together with the exact technical knowhow required, could lead to a successful TCAS spoofing attack. On this side of the Atlantic, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) says instances of jamming and spoofing are relatively rare around the world. Glenn Bradley, the Civil Aviation Authority's head of flight operations, said: 'We recognise the scale of these events and work closely with the industry, including other aviation regulators, airlines and aircraft manufacturers to understand and reduce the issues created by jamming. 'While there are several safety protocols and mitigations in place to protect navigation systems on commercial aircraft, we continue to monitor incidents worldwide to ensure that any actions or improvements to safeguarding are swiftly put in place as necessary.' While officials are, so far, sceptical about TCAS spoofing becoming reality, the findings of an investigation into the Washington, DC incidents suggest that it may actually have taken place. New York magazine, citing 'a reliable government source', reported earlier this month that the TCAS spoofing had been caused by the US Secret Service. The spooks had reportedly been testing unspecified equipment near US Vice-President JD Vance's official residence at the US Naval Observatory. 'They didn't tell anyone or co-ordinate with anyone,' the source told Intelligencer. 'Once it became known that this was causing issues throughout the area, they worked with the FAA [Federal Aviation Authority].' A Secret Service spokesman told the magazine its agents were working to 'better understand the specifics of how these alerts occur and ensure our systems do not interfere with commercial air-traffic operations', while the FAA said it had managed to 'pinpoint the source and correct it'. So far, airline passengers have little to worry about. TCAS spoofing may have become reality, following years of warnings – but for now, there's little evidence that anyone malicious is using it as a hostile attack technique. But, with the rise of cyber-hacking gangs and asymmetrical warfare, it might just be a matter of time.
New York Times
20-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
A Plane Crash in Brooklyn Overshadowed Her Childhood
Good morning. It's Tuesday. Today we'll meet a woman who wrote a memoir about how her life was affected by a midair collision over New York Harbor nearly 65 years ago. We'll also find out about graduation day for Mohsen Mahdawi, who led pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University — and was arrested by immigration officers last month. Also, watch your inbox. Coming your way later today will be our limited-edition newsletter, The Sprint for City Hall. It will look at how tensions over the war in Gaza have made their way into the mayor's race and even affected a parade over the weekend. It will also look at how another time-tested political tool, candidates' children, are being deployed as the June 24 primary approaches. Marty Ross-Dolen went to Green-Wood Cemetery to stand by a monument that her grandparents' names are on. The monument is 'hidden back there,' she said. 'You don't know that people even know about it.' She herself didn't know much about why her grandparents' names belonged on the monument until nearly 20 years ago, when she was in her mid-40s and finally read up on something that was almost never talked about when she was growing up: a midair collision over New York Harbor in December 1960. Her grandparents — her mother's mother and father — had been passengers on one of the two planes. 'The plane crash had been a part of my life since I asked my mother where her parents were,' Ross-Dolen said. 'I must have been 4. I knew who they were because there were pictures around the house, and I was named for my grandmother. But my mother raised me in silence. In the 1960s, there was no language for processing grief.' Ross-Dolen, who learned that language on her way to becoming a child psychiatrist and a writer, has processed more than grief in a just-published memoir, 'Always There, Always Gone: A Daughter's Search for Truth' (She Writes Press). It is a very personal account of the aftermath of a disaster that captured attention for a few days. Then the world moved on — for everyone else. Her mother's parents, Garry and Mary Myers, ran the magazine Highlights for Children, which Garry Myers's parents had started after World War II. Ross-Dolen said the trip to New York, with another Highlights executive, had a purpose. Her grandparents wanted to see about getting Highlights for Children on newsstands. They boarded a Trans World Airlines plane in Columbus, Ohio, where they lived and the magazine had its headquarters. New York was little more than 90 minutes away on the propeller-driven Super Constellation, and as it pushed through sleet and fog, air traffic controllers cleared it to descend to 5,000 feet on its way to landing at LaGuardia Airport. A different plane heading toward a different airport was also preparing to land — a United Airlines DC-8, bound for what was then known as Idlewild Airport (now John F. Kennedy International Airport). The two aircraft should never have been less than three miles from each other. But the jet, which had transceiver trouble, was not over New Jersey, where the pilots and the air traffic controllers assumed it was. It was already over Staten Island. And then the two dots on the radar screen merged into one. In all, 134 people died — 128 passengers and crew members on the two planes, and 6 people on the ground in Brooklyn, where wreckage from the United plane landed in Park Slope. 'There was one time in high school when I discovered my mother looking at old newspapers,' Ross-Dolen said. 'I didn't inquire. I didn't try to find those articles.' But in 2008, with a little time on her hands, 'I decided to sneak, almost like a kid, and see what had happened.' And by 2008, there was Google, which made her search easier. 'I'm sure I was shaking when I was reading about it,' she said. Then, in 2010, as the 50th anniversary of the accident approached, she and her mother talked about it — to a reporter from The Columbus Dispatch, who had asked to interview her mother. 'We were trying to hold ourselves together,' Ross-Dolen said. 'It became less a mother-daughter thing and more partners in mourning.' In The New York Times's articles about the anniversary, I wrote that it was 'almost a ghost disaster, one without the universally shared imagery of the Titanic or the Hindenburg, one that is, in a strange way, nearly forgotten by those who weren't there or touched directly by it.' Ross-Dolen was touched by it, even though she was born six years after it happened. She began working on her book after the monument was unveiled on the 50th anniversary of the crash. She said that seeing it again last week was 'profound,' because she had a feeling of coming full circle. 'Fourteen years ago, I was standing there with people who had been connected to the story of the accident,' she said. 'This time, I was standing by myself, but I was also putting my story into the world.' Today will be sunny and slightly breezy with a high near 70. Tonight, expect cloudy skies with a low around 55. In effect until Memorial Day. The latest New York news Mohsen Mahdawi, who was detained by ICE, graduates from Columbia He walked across the stage wearing the graduation gown he had ironed himself. He bowed. He held his mortarboard above his head with one hand. He flashed a peace sign with the other. Only then did Mohsen Mahdawi collect his bachelor's degree from Columbia University. My colleague Sharon Otterman writes that it was a moment of happiness for Mahdawi that the Trump administration had tried to prevent. Mahdawi is a green card holder who led pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia and was arrested by immigration officers last month in Vermont. A federal judge ordered him released two weeks later in a setback for the Trump administration's effort to crack down on student demonstrators. Mahmoud Khalil, another Columbia student who was a prominent figure in pro-Palestinian demonstrations on the Columbia campus, was supposed to receive his graduate diploma from Columbia this week. But Khalil, a legal permanent resident who was detained in March, remains in a detention center in Louisiana. His wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, spoke an at unofficial alternative graduation ceremony on Sunday at a church on the Upper West Side, saying that graduation was another milestone he had missed since his arrest. He was not allowed to leave the detention center when she gave birth to a son last month. Tosca Dear Diary: We were returning from a vacation in Spain. Our first stop was on West Broadway to retrieve our African gray parrot, Tosca. From there we took a taxi to our Nassau Street home. As we exited the cab in front of our building, we were greeted by the familiar cacophony of horns, sirens and bustling people. My wife spied a fresh fruit cart on the corner near Pace University. 'I'll be right back,' she said as she walked away with Tosca on her shoulder. Suddenly, I heard her yell, 'Tosca, Tosca,' and saw her running down Park Place with people following her and yelling, 'Oscar, Oscar.' A gust of wind had apparently lifted Tosca off her shoulder and was carrying her down the street. She soon landed and began to screech: 'Taxiiii, taxiiiiiii.' 'Is that pigeon calling a taxi?' a woman who appeared somewhat bewildered said. Yes, indeed. We had taught Tosca to say 'taxiii' when she wanted to be carried around our loft. Luckily, my wife reached Tosca before any harm came to her, offered her a finger and then carried her home amid cheers and laughter from those who had gathered to watch. — Penny Bamford Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Ama Sarpomaa and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@ Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
Wall Street Journal
15-05-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
This Air-Traffic Controller Just Averted a Midair Collision. Now He's Speaking Out.
MALVERN, Pa.—Jonathan Stewart was into his fourth hour overseeing the planes flying near Newark, N.J., when he noticed two aircraft speeding nose-to-nose on his radar scope. A business jet that had departed the Morristown airport was heading toward another small plane that had taken off from nearby Teterboro, a hub for corporate flying. A midair collision was potentially seconds away with planes flying at the same altitude.
