5.11 Technical supervision

Remote aerodrome ATS is based on a distributed infrastructure comprising system components on the aerodrome as well as in the remote tower facility, which may be located away from the aerodrome. The infrastructure also includes data communication connecting the sites involved. The ATS provision is dependent on a high level of availability of the technical system. The system and its constituents should include monitoring functions that continuously monitor the technical status and provide: Presentation of the technical status: Indicate system availability by acquiring, synthesising and displaying the technical and functional status of the system and its constituents. Failure detection: Generate alarms and warnings when failures have been detected. Support for analysis of the detected failure: Classify the severity of the failure and make available the recorded technical data related to the failure. Proposed actions and help function: Propose appropriate failure correction actions based on the available data. Log technical data: Record data related to the failures for post-processing in support of safety procedures, system development and history of events. The requirements and need for a technical supervision role should be based upon the local needs and the local safety assessment. The technical supervision role can be implemented in different ways depending on the local situation. The role can be: part of the normal maintenance organisation at the aerodrome; or a dedicated function at the remote facility; or a mixture of both as long as one function has responsibility for the total system functionality. The system monitoring function should automatically analyse the failures, classify them and, based on the severity, present information to the technical supervisory function. The technical supervisory function should have access to all information. The information presented related to the failure can be on different detailed levels. In the ATCO/AFISO positions, only information directly related to the operational function should be presented. Advice and ‘help information’ could be generated by the system automatically or be provided through other means like ‘checklists’, etc. In case of severe failures impacting the operational service provided when the ATCO/AFISO is monitoring the system, the solution could be for the ATCO/AFISO to call for the technical supervisory specialist, close down the service or implement pre-arranged contingency plans.