ATC
Blakey ‘not amused’ by LAAS debacle
LAAS developer Honeywell and FAA LAAS program officials remain tight lipped about how the contract, awarded in April on the understanding that the system’s

LAAS developer Honeywell and FAA LAAS program officials remain tight lipped about how the contract, awarded in April on the understanding that the system’s development was 80-percent complete, had by September reversed itself to becoming only 20-percent complete.

FAA insiders have informed AIN that in fall 2002, FAA Administrator Marion Blakey was asked to approve the award to Honeywell of the final LAAS development contract–for which two other developers had competed–but that she had refused to do so until she could be assured that the long-troubled program was now risk free. Agency officials reportedly then launched a six-month due-diligence investigation which, by last April, gave Honeywell’s project a clean bill of health, along with the assertion that only 20 percent of the development work remained.