The Federal Aviation Administration announced Thursday that it has installed a new safety technology at New Orleans Louis Armstrong International Airport designed to help prevent collisions between aircraft and airport vehicles on runways and taxiways.
The new system, called a Surface Movement Radar, is a specialized radar that sits atop the air traffic control tower and is designed to detect features on the surface of an airport — like fire trucks and luggage carts — enabling air traffic controllers to better monitor on-the-ground aircraft and vehicle traffic.
The system also alerts controllers of any safety issues, like potential collisions.
The New Orleans airport is the third airport in the nation to receive the upgrade from the FAA, after Houston (IAH) and San Diego, according to a release from the agency.
“We are proud to be one of the first airports in the country to receive this next-generation technology, and we are grateful to the FAA for their continued investment in the safety of the New Orleans Airport,” airport spokesperson Erin Burns said in a statement.
The upgrade is part of the Trump administration’s $12.5 billion initiative, unveiled earlier this spring, to modernize aging and outdated air traffic control systems at airports around the country. The nation’s airport safety systems have come under scrutiny after several high-profile accidents and well-publicized near-misses in recent months.
In March, an Air Canada plane collided with a firetruck on the tarmac at LaGuardia Airport in New York, killing the pilot and copilot and resulting in dozens of injured passengers.
In January 2025, an army helicopter collided with a commercial airplane near the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, DC, killing 67 and becoming one of the deadliest commercial aviation accidents in U.S. history.
The new surface radar system was installed earlier this week and will begin operating later this summer, the FAA said.
