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What’s new: Saturday morning several aircraft approaching Reagan National Airport in D.C. received false alerts from their Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance Systems (TCAS). The system warns when other aircraft are too close or are on collision courses.
Why it’s important: TACS is a safety system that has saved lives. False warnings can (1) cause aircraft to maneuver abruptly (i.e. less safely), and (2) eventually lead to pilots not reacting properly to future warnings.
What else to know:
- We are not sure if this is GPS/ADS-B related. However, the DHS/CISA advisory about TCAS cited below does say “By utilizing 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).”
- Some of the impacted aircraft took evasive action, some aborted their approach and tried again. All landed safely. We are glad this happened in the day time and in good weather.
- Last year DHS issued a cyber security warning about TCAS devices.
- Thank you to RNT Foundation member Ryan Terp who brought this to our attention!
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating after several airliners on approach to land at Washington Reagan National Airport Saturday morning received what appear to be false alarms from their onboard Traffic Collision Avoidance System.
“It’s been happening all morning. Let me know if you see anything. No one else has seen anything except for on the TCAS,” one air traffic controller can be heard telling an inbound flight. Based on CBS News’ review of the ATC audio, at least 12 flight crews reported receiving apparent false TCAS alerts — leading three flights to perform go-arounds between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. ET on Saturday.
