Wed, Aug 16, 2006
"Enough Is Enough"
In the wake of the second failure in a week of an ILS approach
system at Los Angeles International -- and with many unanswered
questions still surrounding last month's blackout of the Air Route
Traffic Control Center in Palmdale -- officials at LAX are changing
their tone when speaking about of relationship with the FAA.
Whereas those officials had been fairly understanding of these
issues in the past... now, they want answers.
"Enough is enough," said Frank Clark, executive director
of a nonprofit organization representing airlines
operating at the Tom Bradley International Terminal, to the Los
Angeles Times. "The frequency of these within a relatively short
interval does create a cause for concern and leads us to wonder if
there isn't something more systemic going on with maintenance and
age of equipment."
The number of problems is disturbing. It all started
last month, when the Los Angeles ARTCC went out July
18 -- resulting in lost communications with planes
flying over SoCal, grounding planes for over an hour. Less
than a week later, a ground radar system failed at LAX, which
nearly led to a runway incursion involving two regional
aircraft.
And then there's the VERY troubleprone ILS on runway 25... which
first failed on a foggy morning on August 7, causing delays to
incoming planes for over 90 minutes. Officials thought THAT
particular problem was solved... until once again, the same system
failed on Monday.
News of the repeated problems is also raising the eyebrows of
some legislators -- most notably Senator Barbara Boxer, who plans
to ask for an explanation of the system snafus during a trip to LAX
on Thursday for a briefing on new security procedures.
Maybe she can get some answers from the FAA.
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