What went wrong ?

As the various players in international air transport seek sophisticated and creative ways to enable sustainable growth in their service offerings, it is simply impossible not to notice that real-world facts force us to a reflection.

Worldwide, in scaring growth pace, society has been shaken by news on incidents and accidents, which cause huge financial losses and eventually cost human lives.

It shouldn't be like this. Where are we doing wrong ?

• "An advanced surface movement guidance and control system (A-SMGCS), therefore, is expected to provide adequate capacity and safety in relation to specific weather conditions, traffic density and aerodrome layout by making use of modern technologies and a high level of integration between the various functionalities". (ICAO Doc. 9830)
• "The surveillance service of A-SMGCS provides airport traffic situational awareness through the position, identification and tracking of aircraft and vehicle suitably equipped on the aerodrome surface. Information is presented on the controller and airport operator display independent of visibility conditions and controller line of sight" (ICAO GANP ASBU SURF-B0/2)
• "The ATCO will be provided with a short term conflicting alerting tool (A-SMGCS initial alerting service) that monitors movements on or near the runway and detects conflicts between an aircraft and another vehicle as well as runway incursion by intruders. Appropriate alerts will be visualized on the ATCO display". (ICAO GANP ASBU SURF-B0/3)
• "Implementing a ground surveillance program and equipping all vehicles with ‘transponders’ significantly enhances the airport’s situational awareness. Comprehensive surveillance, in conjunction with a surface conflict detection tool, significantly improves airport capacity as controllers can focus on tasks related to the efficiency of ground movements" (CANSO - Implementing ATFM and CDM)
• "The?Air Traffic Control Service at an aerodrome extends throughout the maneuvering area, but no specific instructions relating to such a service cover the apron. Therefore an apron management service is required to regulate the activities and the movement of aircraft and vehicles on the apron" (ICAO Doc. 9137 - Part 8 - Chapter 10)
• "ATFM should be implemented and applied by using collaborative decision-making processes in order to balance capacity and demand within different volumes of airspace and airport environments". (ICAO - Doc. 9971)

In other words, all challenges inherent in the desire to grow an activity that depends on a finite infrastructure (usable airspace and airport surface), have been foreseen and studied in a timely manner and Best Practices to deal with them, have been publicly recommended.

What didn't work, then?

It seems that the human intelligence, of the various players, involved in planning the sustainable growth of the activity (within their isolated silos of individual planning) has not been capable of transforming knowledge into wisdom.

And the bad news is that not even information technology, biometrics and artificial intelligence together, will be able to replace the logic and common sense, that human intelligence seems to have disregarded.

As the Dakota Tribe Indians would say, "If the horse is dead, it's best to dismount“.

It's time to rewind the tape, review all best practices proposed (and ignored) for decades and admit that current events are nothing but obvious consequences, of a long period of inaction and obsession with growth "no matter what“ !

Let's not expect artificial intelligence to do this for us. There is no such thing as "Artificial Consciousness."

Saab

Saab, Inc.

Saab Brasil