This new tech could help prevent future runway crashes

On a foggy winter day at Austin’s airport three years ago, a FedEx cargo plane nearly crashed into a Southwest Airlines jet full of passengers after both were cleared to use the same runway. At the last moment, as the FedEx plane was landing, the pilot saw the outline of the other plane’s wing and pulled up, narrowly avoiding the disaster. An air traffic controller couldn’t see that the Southwest plane was sitting on the runway because of the heavy fog. Last fall, a test flight in Kansas City recreated the incident on a Boeing 757 outfitted with new software from Honeywell that warns pilots directly when there’s a collision risk on a runway. The technology, called Surf-A (short for “surface alerts”) tracks the position of planes and ground vehicles using data from onboard transponders. In an emergency, pilots get a clear warning like “traffic on runway” or “traffic behind.” The company already provides other products that warn pilots if they’re approaching a runway incorrectly. [