DOGE and FAA Must Act Now After Near Disaster at Midway

WASHINGTON - Feb. 26, 2025 - PRLog -- The near disaster at Chicago's Midway Airport is only the latest in a string of fatal and non-fatal airplane accidents, not to mention a growing number of very serious "runway incursions" [near misses], which have frightened the flying public, especially since Elon Musk had promised to make "rapid safety upgrades" to air traffic safety within months.

Now, more than a month after President Donald Trump took office - also almost a month since his chosen Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, assumed command - and in the face of growing criticism of Musk, DOGE, and the FAA on many different grounds, nothing seems to have happened to reassure the public about the dangers of flying.

With all this pressure, Musk, DOGE, and/or the FAA must act now, even if it's only to issue a statement about how something new to make the skies safer is being considered by the technocrats, argues Professor John Banzhaf at the George Washington University.

Banzhaf, an MIT-educated engineer and inventor with two U.S. patents, and responsible for several major advances in data processing, thinks DOGE should at the very least announce that it considering using its technical expertise to evaluate and test whether an AI program monitoring radio traffic could supplement existing safety measures and planned safety measures, especially since the latter will not be operational anytime soon.

While not much is yet known about the deadly crash at Reagan National Airport, and the near disaster at Midway, these and the ever growing number of near misses - many of which the New York Times says are being kept secret - should again raise the issue of whether an AI guidance assistance system might have alerted the control tower and/or the pilots in time to avert the accident and the near miss.

This issue has been raised repeatedly over the past several years as the number of near misses at or near major airports - many of which have been kept secret - has continued to increase, says Banzhaf, who has described how such AI systems might operate.

Especially since the cost to establish and preliminarily test such a system would be minimal, and could be done in months if not weeks, it's hard to argue that this possibility should not at the very least be considered.

Banzhaf, who have researched and written frequently about safety issues, described his suggestion in this article:

Still Another Airport Near Crash – Can AI Help? Southwest Plane Just Missed Cessna at San Diego (https://www.valuewalk.com/still-another-airport-near-cras...)

http://banzhaf.net/ jbanzhaf3ATgmail.com @profbanzhaf