The US aviation authority FAA has ordered special measures for landings of the Boeing long-haul jet 787 “Dreamliner” due to safety concerns due to the introduction of the new 5G mobile communications standard. The FAA announced on Friday that additional precautions would have to be taken if the runway at airports with 5G service was wet or covered in snow, since the machines could require a longer braking distance.
Interference could affect landing maneuvers
The reason is that a radio frequency range of the new high-speed Internet for mobile phones could get in the way of certain aircraft electronics in landing mode. According to the FAA, 137 machines in the US and 1010 worldwide are affected. As the authority writes in its statement, safety specialists have identified a specific risk over the past two weeks: the radio altimeter on this type of aircraft could be disrupted by the C band of the 5G mobile radio spectrum, thereby preventing the engine and braking systems of a machine from going into landing mode changed. As a result, these systems may not be able to stop the aircraft on the runway.
In an unusual step, US Secretary of Transportation Buttigieg and FAA Director Dickson had previously appealed in a letter to network operators AT&T and Verizon to postpone the introduction of 5G, originally planned for January 5, by two weeks; in the area around airports in the USA, the introduction of the C-band frequency range should also be postponed until around March so that airport operators have more time for further tests and necessary upgrades.
Both mobile network operators accommodated the government and the authority and announced that they would suspend 5G roll-out in the vicinity of certain airports for six months. The aviation industry and US authorities want to agree on how to proceed.
(tw)