Weather monitor misread causes flight delay

By JOHN SKIPPER, Of The Globe-Gazette

MASON CITY - Newly installed weather-monitoring equipment at Mason City Municipal Airport misread weather conditions recently, causing delays in some early morning flights.

The Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS) replaced human weather observers on Aug. 17 in measuring and reporting weather data to pilots flying in an out of Mason City.

Steve Beckett of Clarion, a weather observer at the airport whose job was eliminated by the new equipment, said he learned this week that the new equipment misread some surface fog as being more serious than it actually was, causing some flights to be delayed.

"In my six years at the Mason City airport, I never saw an instance where an error by a human observer caused flights to be delayed or canceled," he said.

Duane Haataja, airport manager, said that one day last week, the system picked up some ground fog and showed a quarter-mile visibility, causing a delay in an early-morning flight. "When the machine says it's a quarter-mile, then officially, it's a quarter-mile," he said. "We have to go by that. We knew there was the possibility of that happening occasionally so it was not really a surprise.

"We are looking into the possibility of buying some equipment so that airline employees can operate the weather system. This will not only help prevent problems such as the one last week but will serve as a backup system for us if the system should ever go down," said Haataja.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the change to the ASOS system was necessitated by limited federal resources, increasing demand and availability of low-cost sensor technology.

http://www.globegazette.com/local/Ni4.shtml

-- Doris (reaper1@mindspring.com), August 31, 2000