By Rob Stapleton
Alaska Journal of Commerce

A program credited with improving aviation safety in Alaska is going to be moved out of the state.

Top officials with the Federal Aviation Administration say that moving the Capstone aviation navigation program outside of Alaska will strengthen the chances of statewide deployment of the technology.

“Moving Capstone into the Surveillance Broadcast Services (SBS) office is part of implementing ADS-B into the National Airspace System,” said Howard Swancy, deputy administrator of the FAA.

Known as Capstone in Alaska and outside the state as Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B), the technology provides weather reports, terrain maps and live air traffic tracking right in the cockpit of equipped aircraft. The use of ADS-B in Alaska has reduced accidents 43 percent during the last three years in the Yukon-Kuskokwim River Delta, an area not served by conventional radar.

According to U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, the FAA briefed his staffers in late November of the move that may disband the Capstone program in Alaska.

“It was the FAA's intention to transition the program from the very beginning,” Stevens told the Journal. “I and my staff are aware that they are going to open an office and work with the Alaska flying community on this.”

According to a memo obtained by the Journal, written by Capstone program director Sue Gardner, the Alaska office is being dissolved.

“... The Capstone office has been informed that it is being dissolved and these responsibilities are being absorbed into the ADS-B office,” Gardner said in her Dec. 6 memo.

But FAA officials in Washington, D.C., indicate that the transition was an inevitability, and that Capstone and ADS-B is part of the FAA's Flight Plan 2007-2009. The FAA Flight Plan is a business plan that outlines its priorities over a number of years.

“Transitioning Capstone into the National Airspace System will strengthen it as part of the larger picture,” according to the FAA's Paula Lewis. “Now it is outside of the system.”

FAA officials in Washington, D.C., told the Journal Dec. 15 that a regional SBS office would be opened in Alaska, and that an unprecedented agreement will be drawn up with the aviation industry council, a group that asked for the Capstone program in 1999.

“We welcome the industry council's input, and want to create a memorandum of understanding to address how and what input will continue to be needed,” Swancy said. The Capstone industry council is made up of the Alaska Air Carriers Association, Alaska Airmen's Association, the Alaskan Aviation Safety Foundation, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association and others.

Representatives with the Alaska Airmen's Association met with SBS team members in November but are unsure of the future of ADS-B in Alaska.

“There is no information coming to us about when and where additional new ground-based transceivers will be installed in Alaska,” said Felix Maguire, the government affairs specialist for the Airmen's Association.

According to the memo, the national office only supports the addition of 14 ground-based transceivers — used to relay information to aircraft — when Gardner and industry council members contend that an additional 28 transceivers could save 272 Alaskan lives over a 20-year period.

But according to Swancy, one of the main reasons that the statewide deployment of Capstone has not gone forward is that the program did not meet the requirements to receive funding. Swancy said FAA programs have to meet a financial review before going to the Joint Resource Council (JRC). The JRC is tasked with scrutinizing cost effectiveness and funding for ongoing FAA programs.

“There were several attempts to get the JRC to meet, and for the program to be reviewed, but it was knocked out for a lack of documentation,” Swancy said. “Without the proper data to support the program's costs, the benefits did not meet funding criteria, and the program was above the cost benefit threshold.”

There is a certainty of deployment, however, Swancy said.

“With the specter of funding cutbacks, we think that perhaps in three to five, or at least 10 years, this program will be fully implemented,” Swancy said.

Swancy said the implementation is likely to be driven by pilots and companies equipping their aircraft before the system is put in place.

The Alaska Airmen's Association, however, does not agree that pilots and aircraft owners should be put in the position of equipping first, and then waiting for the ground based transceivers to be turned on in Alaska, according to executive director Dee Hanson.

That would mean that the Capstone equipment, and the ensuing ground based transceivers, would not be deployed for statewide coverage until a certain number of aircraft are equipped, and the cost benefits outweigh the expenses.

Currently the Capstone office has eight FAA employees and has contracts with nearly 40 vendors.

“You can't forget that the (FAA) administrator is very interested in Alaska and this program. I assure you that it is not going away,” Swancy said. “It is just going to be run by an office that is charged with implementing it into the National Airspace System.”

Rob Stapleton can be reached at rob.stapleton@alaskajournal.com.