BAE Systems received an industry award for its contributions to air traffic safety at the 16th annual ATC Maastricht Exhibition and Conference last month. Six awards are presented each year at ATC Maastricht, an annual conference for the air traffic control and management industry, to recognize contributions to air traffic management safety and capacity. ClearFlite is a digital mapping tool developed for the aviation industry to help operators identify and collect vertical obstructions in and around airfields. Available in BAE Systems’ SOCET SET software package, ClearFlite uses images acquired from aircraft or satellites along with other SOCET SET functionality to help operators define obstructions more efficiently, with a higher degree of accuracy. BAE Systems developed ClearFlite in response to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s Ron Brown Airfield Initiative, created after a fatal plane crash in 1996 in Dubrovnik, Croatia, which killed U.S. Commerce Secretary Ronald Brown and 33 other passengers and crew. The accident was attributed to poor weather conditions, a lack of knowledge of the airfield environment, and an off-course approach.
