> For starters visibility was down to 1/8th of a mile. So tower likely never saw how close this was. Second off apparently Austin does not have ground radar. Regardless of that though this is the second near catastrophic accident we’ve had in two weeks or so here in the US alone.
We've learned the lesson once already that not having ground radar is a bad idea.
Edit: Bah, wrong comment on the chain.
Spending a great deal of money to track aircraft on the ground however is only helpful when one of the aircraft is on the ground. It’s only partially useful when visibility is low, at which point air traffic control can be especially paranoid.
Technology isn’t the only option, proper procedures can also work.
In this case the accident was avoided because aircraft could see each other long before there was a meaningful risk. It wasn’t a mismanaged zero visibility situation but rather proper procedures working.
FR24 is a combination of ground-based radar (both primary and secondary surveillance) and ADS-B data.
TCAS (as I understand it) uses the transponder part of secondary surveillance radar, but with out the bearing/ranging info, as well as ADS-B (if equipped).
TCAS is useless in the terminal environment, like while landing or taking off. If it wasn’t inhibited (which it is) it would be correctly screaming that there are about to be a dozen airplanes too close for comfort every single time it got near an airport.
It’s a system for avoiding mid-air collisions not stuff like this.