MKC Controller voiced concern regarding continued erroneous MSAW alarms on both arrival and departure aircraft.
Synopsis
MKC Controller voiced concern regarding continued erroneous MSAW alarms on both arrival and departure aircraft.
Narrative
An E55P was on a Visual Approach to Runway 19 at MKC. Everything was normal regarding his descent rate and approach; except that an automated MSAW alert (Low Altitude alert) occurred. This was an erroneous alert. This was only one of dozens of erroneous alerts we will have today and almost every day. For years we have been receiving numerous erroneous alerts on arrivals into MKC. Recently they have also started to occur on departing aircraft. In this case; the alert began at 1;900 MSL and continued in the descent through 1;700 MSL. Pattern altitude at this airport is 1;800 MSL. So we have an aircraft at the pattern altitude; within 2 miles of the airport; and the MSAW goes off; which of course requires MCI to call on the shout line and tell us that there's an MSAW alarm going off. In the real world; the aircraft is all nice and established on a standard base; looking good and there was nothing abnormal about his descent rate or anything. He was essentially at pattern altitude in the pattern tagged properly as an arrival. This may come as a surprise to some; but aircraft have to get close to the ground in order to land. There's got to be some way to change the parameters on the MSAW alerts. The MCI SOP paragraph 2-1-6; sentence 2; which requires MCI controllers to call MKC on the shout line every single time one of these erroneous alarms occurs; is an unsafe and uselessly distracting requirement; and needs to be stricken immediately.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.