WASHINGTON-People flying New Year’s Eve 1999 should wonder if their airplanes will be able to navigate safely if the pilots cannot see wireless antenna facilities-especially 200-foot towers.
If the millennium bug strikes the electric power grid, the lighting on antenna towers is likely to fail.
If the millennium bug strikes the telecommunications network, notifying the Federal Aviation Administration within the 30-minute time limit may be impossible.
If these “ifs” come to pass, an airplane could hit a tower causing a major accident.
“This is a potentially grave situation,” said Jamison Prime of the public safety and private wireless division of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau.
As part of its activities to study potential problems with the Y2K bug (a programming glitch that could cause a host of network failures), the FCC held a hearing last week on antenna-tower lighting.
The message from lighting manufacturers, building owners, tower owners and managers, and the electric industry was encouraging and discouraging.
Panelists told the FCC their piece of the puzzle was ready for the new millennium.
However, the FCC is not requiring tower owners and managers to assure there is a back-up power source should the electric grid fail, although the agency is hopeful tower owners and managers will take the necessary precautions.
“We are trying to have the owners be aware as much as possible. We hope the [tower] owners would have a [backup] battery system [in place by the new millennium],” said WTB attorney Bert Weintraub.
The FCC requires all towers more than 200 feet tall or within five miles of an airport be certified with the FAA and registered with the FCC. These towers must be properly lit and should the lighting fail, the tower owner and/or manger must tell the FAA within 30 minutes so airplanes in the area can be notified.
In the area of tower registration, the FCC also announced last week a recent audit of antenna towers revealed 368 towers (about 28 percent of the 1,331 audited) were not registered as required by FCC rules.
