Tracking systems for airport ground vehicles in wake of deadly LaGuardia crash
NEW YORK CITY (WABC) -- Experts say that a tracking device on airport ground vehicles could have helped prevent the deadly crash between a Port Authority fire truck and an Air Canada plane that killed two pilots last month at LaGuardia Airport.
The Port Authority will now expand their use and put tracking devices on all its vehicles at airports.
The National Transportation Safety Board highlighted that LaGuardia Airport is equipped with an Airport Surface Detection Equipment system which is used by Air Traffic Control to track surface movement of planes and ground vehicles.
When Port Authority Police Department Truck 1 entered the runway at LaGuardia Airport at the time of the crash, the NTSB said the airport's ground surveillance system - the Airport Surface Detection Equipment, Model X, or ASDE-X - did not generate an alert warning to air traffic controllers because the vehicle did not have a tracking device.
The FAA has been recommending tracking devices in airport ground vehicles for quite some time.
The investigation into this crash is ongoing.
While some experts say a tracking device could have prevented the crash, investigators are still determining the exact cause, and they have refrained from saying that a transponder on the truck by itself would have completely prevented the crash.
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