TCAS – System to avoid collisions with traffic

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Today we will talk about the system TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) o Traffic collision prevention system that makes the aviation even safer. flyingmag.com's photo

The TCAS system is a system that is currently used by almost all commercial and executive aircraft to have additional security in their operations.. This system works in conjunction with the same system installed on other surrounding aircraft..

Post written by: Captain Rudolph Star
FAA Commercial Pilot
Twitter: @rodo_estrella

Given what happened in the Guayaquil airport days ago and that has generated a lot of noise on social networks and included misinformation about the risks of what is known as TCAS RA, We have created this post to further expand the information on how the industry is the safer means of transportation. For you to have a context I share this thread on Twitter:

Before your orders, I am going to clarify several points regarding what happened at the Airport of #Guayaquil last 13 from August to about 16:45 hours. 1. Avoid sensationalism. I open thread 🧵 https://t.co/dtkEeOKMYy

— Nicholas Larenas ✈️ (@n_larenas) August 20, 2022

The TCAS system

The system once activated, constantly monitors the transponder signal of surrounding aircraft that are below the aircraft, above or at the same flight level generating a situational three-dimensional map of the aircraft with respect to others in the airspace by means of a radio wave transmitted in the 1030 MHz. When an aircraft enters the airspace within the range of the system, TCAS interrogates the other aircraft's system to obtain relative position of this aircraft..

Usually the system TCAS delivers visual information to pilots either integrated into their navigation displays or on a dedicated instrument. The constant monitoring of these traffics provides an image to the crews of aircraft that are not identifiable with the naked eye or confirm others that have been sighted..

Now, this system in addition to monitoring, provides warnings and resolutions, visual and auditory to pilots

TA alerts (traffic advisory) warn of potentially nearby traffic to be wary of in case you have to maneuver the plane to avoid a collision. The System illuminates on its screen indicating relative position and an audible signal “Traffic, Traffic”

If the traffic goes from an alert to a collision condition, the system enters RESOLUTION ADVISORY mode, where it first coordinates with the other aircraft in whose cabin its own system will also alert the imminent collision in the same way a solution to avoid the collision, be by issuing an audible alert for an aircraft of “CLIMB, CLIMB” or ascend, and to the other “DESCEND, DESCEND” or descend. This resolution alert must be obeyed by the crew of both conflicting aircraft immediately..

Once the aircraft have overcome the threat condition for each other, the system issues a “CLEAR OF CONFLICT” alert indicating that the conflict stage and possible collision have been overcome.

Usually for a crew to act on a collision alert issued by the system ,some very special conditions must have happened to get to this point, either because of traffic congestion, inadvertent deviations of crews, or control failures air traffic that although they happen since they are systems whose operators are human subject to failures, systems such as TCAS are the last defense barrier to avoid catastrophes such as mid-air collisions.

As we can see, thanks to technology, aviation is very safe and despite the fact that situations like these are generated daily, without us knowing, we can be calm that pilots, controllers and the entire industry constantly train for these and other emerging situations that could put operational safety at risk.

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