Terrain Awareness And Warning System
A terrain awareness and warning system (TAWS) aims to prevent "Controlled Flight Into Terrain" (CFIT) accidents. The actual systems in current use are known as ground proximity warning system and enhanced GPWS. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) developed the TAWS term to encompass all current and future systems which meet the relevant FAA standards. New systems, with different names than GPWS and EGPWS, may be developed which meet TAWS objectives. As well, the term TAWS is sometimes used to refer to second-generation EGPWS systems as opposed to first generation GPWS systems, although this usage can be confusing.
As of 2007, 5% of the world's commercial airlines still lack a TAWS, leading to a prediction of two CFIT accidents in 2009, even though they were completely preventable.
Several factors can still place aircraft at risk for CFIT accidents: older TAWS systems, deactivation of the EGPWS system, or ignoring TAWS warnings when an airport is not in the TAWS database.
Read more about Terrain Awareness And Warning System: History, Workings, TAWS Types, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words awareness, warning and/or system:
“Introspection is self-improvement and therefore introspection is self-centeredness. Awareness is not self-improvement. On the contrary, it is the ending of the self, of the “I,” with all its peculiar idiosyncrasies, memories, demands, and pursuits. In introspection there is identification and condemnation. In awareness there is no condemnation or identification; therefore, there is no self-improvement. There is a vast difference between the two.”
—Jiddu Krishnamurti (b. 1895)
“By day thy warning ringing bell to sound its notes,
By night thy silent signal lamps to swing.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“Authority is the spiritual dimension of power because it depends upon faith in a system of meaning that decrees the necessity of the hierarchical order and so provides for the unity of imperative control.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)