US Safety Board: More Tech Investment Needed to Prevent Aviation Accidents

The US National Transportation Safety Board logo
The US National Transportation Safety Board logo
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US Safety Board: More Tech Investment Needed to Prevent Aviation Accidents

The US National Transportation Safety Board logo
The US National Transportation Safety Board logo

The US needs to invest more in aviation safety technology solutions after a series of close-call runway incidents this year, the head of the US National Transportation Safety Board said on Tuesday.

The NTSB is investigating six runway incursion events since January including some that could have been catastrophic.

Technology systems that help detect aircraft and ground vehicles at airports to prevent runway incursion are currently used at 43 US airports. That technology needs to be upgraded and all other commercial airports also need additional technology, Jennifer Homendy, chair of the NTSB, told reporters.

She was speaking after a five-hour meeting with industry, union, government and academic representatives on ways to address runway incursions.

"We have to make sure all these upgrades to safety can be funded," Homendy said, adding that proper pilot and air traffic control staffing was also important.

The US has about 500 commercial airports.

The US runway incursion rate steadily increased from late 2022 and into 2023, peaking in March at 33 per 1 million takeoffs and landings. That rate fell to 19 in April.

According to Reuters, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the rate was coming closer to normal levels and vowed continued vigilance.

The US has not had a major fatal US passenger airline crash since February 2009.

In March, the FAA said it was taking steps to improve air traffic control, convening a safety summit and issuing a safety alert. In April, it named an independent safety review team and on Monday, it announced an investment of $100 million in 12 airports for improvements to taxiways and lighting to reduce runway incursions.

Homendy said a FedEx cargo plane and a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 that came within about 115 feet (35 meters) of each other in Austin on Feb. 4 in poor visibility conditions could have been a "terrible tragedy."

She disclosed Tuesday that the FedEx plane's first officer saw a single light from the Southwest 737 and then a silhouette of the plane before they aborted their planned landing.

"The first officer said, 'Hey this is what I see' and then says 'I think we should perform a go around,'" Homendy told reporters. "This crew did a great job."

Near-miss incidents have also occurred in Boston, Florida and include a near collision at New York's JFK airport between a Delta Air Lines plane and an American Airlines Boeing 777.



US Supreme Court Tosses Case Involving Securities Fraud Suit against Facebook

A 3D-printed Facebook logo is seen in front of a displayed stock graph. (Reuters)
A 3D-printed Facebook logo is seen in front of a displayed stock graph. (Reuters)
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US Supreme Court Tosses Case Involving Securities Fraud Suit against Facebook

A 3D-printed Facebook logo is seen in front of a displayed stock graph. (Reuters)
A 3D-printed Facebook logo is seen in front of a displayed stock graph. (Reuters)

The US Supreme Court sidestepped on Friday a decision on whether to allow shareholders to proceed with a securities fraud lawsuit accusing Meta's Facebook of misleading investors about the misuse of the social media platform's user data.
The justices, who heard arguments in the case on Nov. 6, dismissed Facebook's appeal of a lower court's ruling that had allowed a 2018 class action led by Amalgamated Bank to proceed. The Supreme Court opted not resolve the underlying legal dispute, determining that the case should not have been taken up. Its action leaves the lower court's decision in place, Reuters reported. 
The court's dismissal came in a one-line order that provided no explanation. The Facebook dispute was one of two cases to come before the Supreme Court this month involving the right of private litigants to hold companies to account for alleged securities fraud. The other one, involving the artificial intelligence chipmaker Nvidia, was argued on Nov. 13. The Supreme Court has not ruled yet in the Nvidia case.
The plaintiffs in the Facebook case claimed the company unlawfully withheld information from investors about a 2015 data breach involving British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica that affected more than 30 million Facebook users. They accused Facebook of misleading investors in violation of the Securities Exchange Act, a 1934 federal law that requires publicly traded companies to disclose their business risks. Facebook's stock fell following 2018 media reports that Cambridge Analytica had used improperly harvested Facebook user data in connection with Donald Trump's successful US presidential campaign in 2016. The investors have sought unspecified monetary damages in part to recoup the lost value of the Facebook stock they held.
At issue was whether Facebook broke the law when it failed to detail the prior data breach in subsequent business-risk disclosures, and instead portrayed the risk of such incidents as purely hypothetical.
Facebook argued that it was not required to reveal that its warned-of risk had already materialized because "a reasonable investor" would understand risk disclosures to be forward-looking statements. President Joe Biden's administration supported the shareholders in the case.
US District Judge Edward Davila dismissed the lawsuit but the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals revived it.
The Cambridge Analytica data breach prompted US government investigations into Facebook's privacy practices, various lawsuits and a US congressional hearing. The US Securities and Exchange Commission in 2019 brought an enforcement action against Facebook over the matter, which the company settled for $100 million. Facebook paid a separate $5 billion penalty to the US Federal Trade Commission over the issue.
The Supreme Court in prior rulings has limited the authority of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the federal agency that polices securities fraud.