Testimony of James E. Smith

The following is in the Matter of...

Investigation of Accident Involving
Wings West Airlines, Inc., Beech
C99, N6399U, and Aesthetec, Inc.,
Rockwell Commander 112TC, N112SM, near
San Luis Obispo, California, on
August 24, 1984

This following dialog was recorded on November 1, 1984, the first day of the NTSB hearing into this midair collision, as reported by Milton Reporting, Inc.

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James E. Smith, a FAA employee for nearly 25 years, and an Area Supervisor, was giving Bill Simon his proficiency check that fateful day. He testified...

From page 220...

12           MS. GOLDMAN:  Excuse me.  There are two questions

13 and I think you ought to -- The first question was, have you

14 ever had people complain of near misses where one of the

15 planes was not identified on the radar, was your first

16 question.

17           MR. SMITH:  I don't know whether I've ever had a

18 near miss, complained of near miss.  I've had people complain

19 about traffic that I haven't observed on the radar.

20           MS. GOLDMAN:  But you have not been able to

21 observe?

22           MR. SMITH:  Yes, I have.

23           MS. GOLDMAN:  Then following that, you did not

24 follow that situation up on the data?

25           MR. SMITH:  No.  I don't believe it's a facility

From Page 221...

 1 practice to do that and if it is, I was not made aware of the

 2 relationship.

 3           MS. GOLDMAN:  Okay.  So there have been, but there

 4 have been occasions where people were not observable to you

 5 on the radar?

 6           MR. SMITH:  Yes.

 7           MS. GOLDMAN:  Okay.  That's the first.  And then it

 8 was not followed through by a radar check.  Sorry, Lloyd.

 9           MR. LAGRANGE:  Okay.  I didn't mean to move too

10 fast.

11           MS. GOLDMAN:  No, but the answer was in two parts

12 and we got a one-part question.  Thank you.  Sorry.  Proceed

13 please.

14 BY MR. LAGRANGE:

15      Q    Okay, one final question.  Inasmuch as the NAS

16 Stage A Computer did process the information on the Rockwell

17 Commander, do you have reason to believe that this radar

18 information was not there to be seen on the Sector 15 Scope?

19      A    I believe that it was not there, personally,

20 because myself, like I said before, I'm not sure that I was

21 concentrating at the time, but there was four people around

22 there and it's hard for me to believe that there was a piece

23 of radar data displayed there that we didn't see during this

24 incident.

From Page 230...

 4      Q    Have you ever had controllers report cases where

 5 they cannot see on their scopes aircraft with operating

 6 transponders?

 7      A    I've had reports.  Well, I may have had reports

 8 like that yes, but occasionally I get report of specific

 9 areas where possibly radar is degreaded a little bit, of which

10 I pass on to the maintenance section.

From Page 244...

25      Q    Mr. Smith, I think that you mentioned in your

From Page 245...

 1 qualifications that you had been a data systems officer in

 2 the facility.

 3      A    Yes, sir.

 4      Q    Does that imply a certain amount of knowledge or

 5 expertise on the NAS Stage A computer system, the hardware

 6 and the software?

 7      A    It applies a certain amount of knowledge in the

 8 software, not including the changes that have gone into it

 9 other than the inputs and outputs over the last eight years.

10      Q    Well, to get back to the very confusing issue again

11 that Captain McClure and Mr. Morro raised, in response to

12 Captain McClure he asked you a question regarding the

13 National Track Analysis Program and the fact that a Mode-C,

14 Code 1,200 target would be printed out on an extracted data

15 from that program.

16      A    Uh-huh.

17      Q    Would you imply in your mind that the airplane

18 that was in that postion that generated that print-out,

19 would have had to have had a working transponder?

20      A    Yes.  I would certainly believe so.  I can't think

21 of any other reason why we would have that data available for

22 the print program if they didn't have a working transponder.

23      Q    Would it similarly imply that the antenna at the

24 facility had to have received the data and procesed it at

25 least to a certain extent?

From Page 246...

 1      A    Yes.

 2      Q    Okay.  Therefore, that would not in your mind --

 3 that would negate any possibility of a radar blind spot in

 4 the area where that target was?

 5      A    Yes.

 6      Q    In your experience, is it often or is it ever that 

 7 the sysmbol V with or without an altitude code can be missed

 8 because it's overlayed by a full data block?

 9      A    I suppose it's possible but not probable.

10      Q    It's not probable.  On the day of the accident, do

11 you recall any other targes in the vicinity of the lcoalizer

12 to runway 11 at San Luis Obispo?

13      A    No, sir.

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The above text was obtained from microfiche as obtained from General Microfilm of Wheaton, MD.

This text was converted from microfiche, to paper, then scanned for Optical Character Recognition (OCR) processing, followed by a great deal of manual editing by Tom Lusch for correct presentation on "Lusch's Midair Collision Investigations" web site <http://home.columbus.rr.com/lusch>. Any errors or omissions resulting from this microfiche to web page process are solely the responsibility of Tom Lusch. Every effort was made to make this an accurate representation of this deposition transcript, right down to mis-spelled and/or incorrect words.

This page created Feb 25, 2000