Earth Networks Launches Aviation Early Warning System for ASECNA

African airspace now protected by comprehensive lightning and weather detection network

Germantown, MD – Earth Networks today announced it has completed a new aviation early weather warning system for The Agency for the Safety of Air Navigation in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA). The announcement was made at the 6^th annual InterMET Asia conference in Singapore.

Designed for air traffic management and airport operations professionals to issue alerts on severe weather and lightning threats that have the potential to affect air and land operations including ground crews, fueling, and aircraft, the newly operational global aviation early warning system includes:

• Real-time lightning detection powered by the Earth Networks Total Lightning Network, featuring over 1,700 sensors in more than 100 countries
• On-the-ground weather monitoring via the Earth Networks Weather Network
• Sferic Maps, a web-based severe weather monitoring and alerting platform 
• Severe weather data and visualization tools such as Dangerous Thunderstorm Alerts and PulseRad, a lightning-derived radar alternative
• Short-range point forecasts powered by ENcast, enabling highly accurate short-term weather prediction for specific areas
• Lightning data integration with SYNERGIE, Meteo France International’s (MFI) web-based, multi-task software that manages METAR weather observations from existing automated weather observing systems (AWOS), making all ASECNA AWOS P/T level ready
• Comprehensive training and ongoing operational support

Based in Dakar, Senegal, ASECNA is one of Africa’s largest Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSP) covering 17 member states in Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central Africa Republic, Congo, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Chad, Togo, Union of Comoros and France. With 6 Flight Information Regions (FIRs), and a vast coverage area 1.5 times the size of Europe’s, ASECNA is responsible for air traffic management for 16.5 million square kilometers of airspace over the African continent.

“We have areas in Central Africa that are affected by heavy cloud cover and thunderstorms nine months out of the year,” said Moctar Mahfoud, Director of Aeronautical Meteorology at ASECNA. “The need to have real-time information about weather phenomena that can cause severe turbulence and plane diversions is crucial.”

Thomas Sobakam, Manager of Meteorological Services at ASECNA added, “After a six-month period of using lightning-derived storm tracking from Earth Networks, we found our rate of false alarms decreased, and have improved our ability to predict when a storm will pass, helping to eliminate delays due to convective storms, which account for 40% of the incident cases in our area of control.”

Jim Anderson, Senior Vice President, Global Sales at Earth Networks said, “We are thrilled with the operational results and their clear impact on safety and operational efficiency improvements in the African airspace. Working with ASECNA, we have substantially enhanced the ability to detect, track and alert for severe weather across an airspace 50 percent larger than all of Europe. These capacity improvements will have significant economic benefits across much of Africa.”

About Earth Networks

Earth Networks is a leader in early warning systems for aviation, with more than 50 airport and aviation customers around the world. Its comprehensive weather monitoring, visualization, alerting and forecasting decision support tools help the aviation industry reduce delays due to weather, eliminate false alerts and provide safe operating conditions during flight and on the ground.

Media Contact:
Anna Porteus
aporteus@earthnetworks.com
+1-301-250-4156