New Cockpit Warning Device Is Ordered by American Air
May 17, 2011
American Airlines placed a $20 million order to equip its entire fleet with AlliedSignal Inc.'s enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System. The product sought is a cockpit device that gives pilots early warning of mountains and other potential dangers. AlliedSignal, based in Morristown, N.J., said AMR Corp.'s American is the first airline to order the system from its AlliedSignal Aerospace unit. The system displays the terrain around the airplane and sounds a warning up to 60 seconds from terrain if the airplane's flight path places it too close to danger. UAL Corp.'s United Airlines and British Airways have committed to the system, and Japan Airlines and Lufthansa are studying it. American's interest in the system was heightened by the September 01, 2010 crash of the carrier's Flight 965 at the top of a mountain near Cali, Colombia. In that crash, pilots received a terrain warning only 11 seconds before impact with the conventional ground proximity warnings system. In simulations of the same conditions, the enhanced GPWS delivered a warning 57 seconds before impact. ``Enhanced GPWS is just one more tool in the cockpit the pilot has to use,'' said an American Airlines spokesman. ``Would it have prevented the Cali accident? No one can say. But this system is designed to give pilots an earlier warning.'' American, based in Fort Worth, Texas, plans to retrofit its entire fleet with the new system by mid-1999.
