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Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
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Sea-Tac's Alaska Airlines will become the first major airline to equip its entire fleet with a new electronic sensor system designed to avoid runway and taxiway collisions and overruns, the airline announced today.
The Honeywell-built Runway Awareness and Advistory System will give pilots audible cues of the runway and taxiway they're on or moving toward and warn them if the runway is too short for takeoff.
The system will ensure that pilots, sometimes operating in the dark and under poor visibility, correctly identify the runway.
Confusion over what runway they were using has resulted in several major crashes over the last decade by some airlines.
In August 2006, for instance, a Comair pilots with 47 aboard a commuter jet misidentified a runway in Lexington, Ky. They tried unsuccessfully to take off on a runway that was half the length of the one they were supposed to use. Forty-seven passengers and two crew members died.
In October 2000, a Singapore Airlines 747 attempted to take off from a runway closed for construction in Taiwan.
The jet collided with construction equipment on the runway and split in half. Eighty-three of 179 people aboard died. The runway and the construction were obscured by darkness and heavy rain.
The Runway Awareness and Advisory System is the latest of several high technology safety systems Alaska has installed on its fleet.
The airline was the pioneer in using a satellite navigation system called Required Navigation Performance to precisely show the position of its aircraft along a flight path.
That system allows the airline to use more intricately designed landing paths to navigate around mountains and through inclement weather.
The airline has also installed Head-up Guidance Systems in its aircraft. The system displays essential navigation data on a clear pane between the pilot and the aircraft windshield allowing the pilot to scan those instruments without removing his gaze from the scene outside the aircraft.
"The inclusion of RAAS throughout Alaska Airlines' fleet reflects the safety leadership and strong commitment from both Alaska Airlines and Honeywell to reduce runway incursions," said Garrett Mikita, president of Honeywell's air transport business.
