On a foggy winter day at Austin\u2019s airport three years ago, a FedEx cargo plane nearly crashed<\/a> into a Southwest Airlines jet full of passengers after both were cleared to use the same runway. At the last moment, as the FedEx plane was landing, the pilot saw the outline of the other plane\u2019s wing and pulled up, narrowly avoiding the disaster. An air traffic controller couldn\u2019t see that the Southwest plane was sitting on the runway because of the heavy fog.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Last fall, a test flight<\/a> in Kansas City recreated the incident on a Boeing 757 outfitted with new software from Honeywell that warns pilots directly when there\u2019s a collision risk on a runway. The technology, called Surf-A (short for \u201csurface alerts\u201d) tracks the position of planes and ground vehicles using data from onboard transponders. In an emergency, pilots get a clear warning like \u201ctraffic on runway\u201d or \u201ctraffic behind.\u201d The company already provides other products that warn pilots if they\u2019re approaching a runway incorrectly. <\/p>\n In Austin, the system could have given the FedEx pilots an extra 28 seconds to react.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really important to provide pilots alerts, because seconds matter,\u201d says Thea Feyereisen, a distinguished technical fellow at Honeywell Aerospace. \u201cIf the alert is just in the tower, it takes a while for the controller to hear that alert. And how does that alert make it to the aircraft\u2014you have to make sure no one else is talking on the radio at the same time. What we really want for runway safety is multiple layers of technology defense, both in the tower as well as in the cockpit for pilots.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Austin airport had another challenge: air traffic controllers didn\u2019t have access to existing technology that tracks aircraft and vehicles and also gives warnings. (Now that tech is in place.) The National Transportation Safety Board has recommended that the FAA require this kind of \u201csurface detection\u201d equipment at all airports, and has also called for direct cockpit alerts to pilots.<\/p>\n In the accident at LaGuardia airport<\/a> on March 22, where a fire truck pulled in front of a plane landing on an active runway, killing both pilots and sending dozens of passengers to the hospital, some advanced technology was indeed in use. The airport operates a system known as ASDE-X, which uses radar and radio sensors to track movement on the ground. But it failed to activate \u201cdue to the close proximity of vehicles merging and unmerging near the runway,\u201d according<\/a> to NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy. The fire truck also lacked a transponder, which would have helped pinpoint its exact location.<\/p>\n The accident is still under investigation, but it\u2019s likely that multiple things went wrong. Preliminary information suggests that red lights had automatically turned on at the runway to show that it was active\u2014so the fire truck should have known to stop even after the air traffic controller had given them permission to proceed. When the crash was imminent and the air traffic controller started giving the truck frantic commands to stop, it\u2019s not clear yet whether the drivers heard them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit,w_1024\/wp-cms-2\/2026\/03\/03-91516709-honeywell-runway-tech.jpg\")