Federal officials have dramatically changed air-traffic control policies that contributed to the death of an air cargo pilot who crashed near Centennial Airport a year ago.
A National Transportation Safety Board report on the Aug. 4, 2005, crash of a Mitsubishi MU-2 turboprop said a controller in the Centennial tower was getting a visual alert on his screen that the pilot was flying too low, but there was no audible alarm until only seconds before the crash.
“Tower controllers are not obligated or encouraged to continuously monitor the radar display because their attention needs to be directed to the airport surface and appropriate surrounding airspace,” the NTSB report posted Wednesday said.
The plane hit a hill about 4 miles south of the airport.
About a minute before the crash, visual and audible alarms activated at the Federal Aviation Administration’s radar facility near Denver International Airport, warning that the plane was too low, the NTSB report said.
Policies at that time did not require those controllers to notify air-traffic towers about low- altitude warnings on planes after control has been handed off to the tower personnel.
Those policies have changed, said Bill Hammond, acting air- traffic manager for the radar center.
Now, when radar controllers get a low-altitude alert, they must call the tower, Hammond said. “It’s a check and balance.”
Authorities also have changed the system so tower controllers get audible low-altitude warning for planes within 10 miles of the airport instead of 5 miles.
Increasing the distance means there is more time to warn a pilot who is descending too low, said Leah Yeager, lead NTSB investigator on the MU-2 accident.
The audible alarm rang in the Centennial tower a year ago when the plane got within 5 miles, and the controller relayed the low-altitude alert.
But it was too late. The plane hit the ridge within a few seconds of the controller’s call.
Staff writer Jeffrey Leib can be reached at 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com.
