Word: airport
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Today most people think that Doppler radar wind-shear-detection systems have been installed in every airport. In fact, only 16 are installed and working. Some $350 million worth of parts for Doppler wind-shear-warning radar (promised after a horrible 1985 crash in Dallas) moldered away when truckloads of equipment went to dusty warehouses instead of to the airports most in need. Other systems are installed but haven't been switched on. Seven of the remaining 47 scheduled for production haven't even been delivered...
...that might have been avoided with Doppler radar. After a USAir flight crashed in Charlotte, North Carolina, in July 1994, the NTSB said the delay in installing the radar had cost the lives of 37 onboard. Charlotte was supposed to get the radar system in early 1993. As an airport in the South (where wind shear is particularly common), it was No. 5 on the FAA list. But the inevitable delays, red tape and land squabbles pushed Charlotte to No. 38, leaving the USAir pilots defenseless against the weather...
...learned that the FAA's abhorrence of action extended to airport security. Plainclothes agents from my office sneaked into some of the 19 busiest airports in the U.S. They wandered around in off-limits areas, seldom challenged by airport or airline employees. We saw other people milling about without proper identification, and they weren't stopped either...
Early in the summer of 1996, I gathered up the final report on airport security and headed toward the FAA administrator's office. I wasn't looking forward to this meeting. The FAA didn't like me, and had never liked my reports, and if I had missed that message, a fresh signal had just been sent. Secretary Pena had been scheduled to come to this meeting. But then his office must have discovered that the latest airport report was not substantially different from the 1993 study. So he bowed out. The message seemed clear. The Secretary was seeking Washington...
...speak Mandarin or Shanghainese?” my mom asked our tour guide when he greeted us at the airport...