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Most people, even those who work at an airport have no idea what an “Alert” is, but they may have heard the term once or twice. To put it simply, Alerts are when aircraft encounter a problem and the pilot informs Air Traffic Control (ATC) who passes the information onto airport authorities through the proper means, typically AVCOM (Aviation Communications) who then signals ARFF units (Aircraft Rescue & Fire Fighting) and Airport Operations.
Alerts are classified into three types:
- ALERT I– is reported when an aircraft has a minor problem. This would include an oil leak, one engine out on a three or four engine aircraft, or one engine out on a twin engine general aviation aircraft weighing less than 12,500 lbs. During an Alert I, the fire department and rescue equipment will stand by near the fire house (on the airfield) and Operations will respond to the approach end of the landing runway. Once the aircraft has landed, Operations will conduct a sweep of the runway for any FOD and turn it back over to ATC. The Alert would then be terminated provided the aircraft landed without incident and is able to taxi to the ramp on its own.
Things almost went sour when a U.S. Airways baggage handler drove a belt loader up to an aircraft to unload the bags from an arriving flight. The employee hopped into the belly of the plane and within seconds a swarm of bees flew directly onto the belt loader. The worker noticed the bees just before stepping out and called for help. An Operations Supervisor notified the Fire department to “hose” the bees off. No one was injured, except for a few honey bees, but if this does not teach you to watch your step then I’m not sure what will!
Michael Nuemaker: Is the FAA in charge of airfield lighting at airports and how are outages documented and replaced?
The vast majority of airfield lighting at most airports are inspected by airport operations every night. An Airport Operations Supervisor will drive on each taxiway and runway and document the outages of each individual light and sign, then issue work orders and if necessary the proper NOTAMs. Once the work request is issued, airfield maintenance will arrange a date to fix the outages. If the runway is equipped with CAT II/III approach equipment, then ATC may seek authorization from Airport Operations to use it during inclement weather. During these times, the Tower must switch from commercial power to generator power and the runway lighting must be inspected every two hours to ensure compliance with FAA regulations, which is also done by an Airport Operations Supervisor.
The FAA is responsible for their navigational equipment, such as the ILS system itself and approach lights prior to the threshold of each runway which is performed on a needed basis by them.
How many pilots actually understand the difference between the CTAF and UNICOM?
It is alarming to me that most general aviation pilots do not understand the difference. The first example that comes to mind is after hurricane Katrina hit in New Orleans. Lakefront Airport was in chaos with both military and civilian aircraft delivering supplies and airlifting residents out of the city. With no control tower in service, pilots began questioning themselves on which frequency to use. They believed that since the part-time tower, which uses a frequency of 119.90 during operational hours was closed that the UNICOM of 122.95 became the default frequency. This is a vulgar mistake, since the CTAF that is used for the non-controlled hours; 2200-0800L is also 119.90. This left a high percentage of pilots on a different frequency, meaning they might as well not have had a radio. Miraculously, no incursions took place although I’ve heard about the many close calls.