New and Improved Ground Radar at Logan

We have seen the headlines “Faulty radar serving Logan leaves thousands stranded” from the Boston Globe.

The Logan International radar system malfunctioned causing flight delays for several hours and multi-cancellation that stranded mega passengers during a holiday peak time. Not to mention the incidents bogging down the runway as well!

I really felt bad for all those travelers looking forward to going home for the holiday or just trying to escaping from personal overload only to find bigger and worse overload at Logan. Promises from the Federal Aviation Administration of things being “fixed within hours or …..several days” would not have appeased me very much.

So what exactly are the problem points?

· Radar screens showing controllers 'false targets"
· Radar screens showing objects that don’t exist, setting off 'conflict alert" warning of potential collisions
· Experiencing delays
· Cutting takeoff and landings almost in half
· Passengers being stranded at the airports

We’re not talking trouble in just the past year or so. As I understand this has been going on 5 years or more. Like In 2000 when the radar fell and it took 2 and one half days before a replacement was made. Some cases they do not even know what the problem is, needing to call in outsiders for analysis. We are not talking a couple of day’s here folks. 2004 had 16 “reported incidents”. I wonder how many occurrences happened we did not know about?

We are told not to be “alarmed” by the radar failure at Logan. Yeah – right.

That comment was made in October and now in November we are told that the FAA speed up the process and Logan will now be one of the 14 airports to get new and improved ground radar that will help detect possible collisions quicker on runways at night and in inclement weather.

Gee – they are admitting that Logan is in dire need due to recent occurrences….duh!

But the kicker – the FAA does not know when it will happen but supposedly there is a nationwide completion date of 2011.