Minimum safe altitude warning (MSAW) is an automated warning system for
air traffic controller
Air traffic control specialists, abbreviated ATCS, are personnel responsible for the safe, orderly, and expeditious flow of air traffic in the global air traffic control system. Usually stationed in air traffic control centers and control ...
s (ATCO). It is a ground-based safety net intended to warn the controller about increased risk of
controlled flight into terrain
In aviation, a controlled flight into terrain (CFIT; usually ) is an aviation accidents and incidents, accident in which an airworthy aircraft, under aircraft pilot, pilot control, is unintentionally flown into the ground, a mountain, a body of ...
accidents by generating, in a timely manner, an alert of aircraft proximity to terrain or obstacles.
Description
ICAO Doc 4444 requires that radar systems should provide for the display of safety-related alerts including the presentation of minimum safe altitude warning.
[{{cite book , title=Rules of the Air and Air Traffic Services , publisher=ICAO, id=Doc 4444-RAC/501] It is worth mentioning that ICAO Doc 4444 does not provide a definition of the term MSAW. Instead the term MSAW is ambiguously used in
ATC community to identify such warnings as well as for data processing systems providing the alert function.
References
External links
SKYbrary article on MSAW
Aviation safety
Air traffic control
Warning systems