5G now means some flights won’t be able to land when pilots can’t see the runway

Photo by GEORGE FREY/AFP via Getty Images

By Sean Hollister

The Verge

 

A new FAA rule may lead to flight delays.

Verizon and AT&T are hoping new swaths of C-band cellular radio spectrum will help make the 5G hype closer to reality, but the big mid-band 5G rollout may have a side effect. Airplanes rely on radio altimeters to tell how high they are above the ground to safely land when pilots can’t see, and the FAA is now instructing 6,834 of them to not do that at certain airports because of 5G interference.

The FAA ruled on Tuesday that those thousands of US planes (and some helicopters) won’t be able to use many of the guided and automatic landing systems that are designed to work in poor visibility conditions, if they’re landing at an airport where there’s deemed to be enough interference that their altimeters aren’t reliable. “Landings during periods of low visibility could be limited due to concerns that the 5G signal could interfere with the accuracy of an airplane’s radio altimeter, without other mitigations in place,” FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford tells The Verge.

“These limitations could prevent dispatch of flights … and could also result in flight diversions”

That likely means flight delays: “These limitations could prevent dispatch of flights to certain locations with low visibility, and could also result in flight diversions,” reads a portion of the FAA’s written explanation.

“We are engaged with the wireless operators, as well as our interagency partners, to do everything possible to make sure the mitigations are tailored to prevent disruptions,” Lunsford tells us.

The FAA ruling does give airlines and pilots an out — if they can prove their airplanes have altimeters that are protected or are otherwise not going to be affected by interference. No airline would comment to The Verge on expected delays, nor would the Airlines for America industry group that the airlines pointed us to.

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Via https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/7/22822875/5g-faa-rule-c-band-landing-airport-bad-weather-visibility