Northern Colorado Regional Airport's remote tower hanging by a thread after partner pulls out

Searidge Technologies, the private company helping develop a remote traffic control tower at Northern Colorado Regional Airport in Loveland, is pulling out of the project, leaving the fate of the so-called "virtual tower" in limbo.

The company had been working with the Colorado Department of Transportation's Aeronautics division and the Federal Aviation Administration since 2018 to develop the first-of-its-kind tower that would eliminate the need and cost of building, maintaining and staffing a physical air traffic control tower while still providing enhanced safety.

Instead of air traffic controllers sitting in a tower above the airport, controllers at the Loveland airport keep their eyes on a bank of monitors as cameras placed around the airport capture a panoramic view of air and ground traffic. Airport officials have said either a virtual or actual tower is needed to attract and retain regularly scheduled commercial air service at the airport.

In a major blow to the airport, the FAA confirmed Searidge was not going forward with the project due to the FAA's reluctance to lift a stop work order imposed earlier this year, according to a brief statement in interim airport director Dave Ruppel's monthly update included in the Northern Colorado Regional Airport Commission's board of directors meeting packet.

CDOT on Wednesday morning issued a statement that said "over the next several weeks, the state, FNL (the airport), and the FAA will collaborate on a new path forward that preserves existing air traffic control services at FNL for the foreseeable future. Future options will be evaluated for continued development of the remote tower facility at FNL as well as potential options for a traditional air traffic control tower.

"Significant interest exists from other remote tower technology providers to continue development at FNL, and the state and FNL will be working closely with the FAA to explore this option as the preferred alternative," the statement read.

Testing of the virtual tower, which has been in the planning and development stage for more than a decade, stalled during the COVID-19 pandemic when FAA inspectors couldn't travel to do the required inspections at the Loveland airport, known by its designation FNL.

In the interim, the FAA released new operational visibility requirements that the airport had to meet before moving forward with the project. Because of that, the FAA stopped testing Loveland’s virtual tower to allow technology to meet the new requirements to be developed and installed, at which point it planned to return to full testing.

Earlier this year, the FAA extended the stop work order for another six months, allowing Searidge Technologies to install new cameras and technology that allow the system to meet the FAA's new visibility criteria set in November 2022. The new requirements didn’t result in an additional cost to the airport’s owner cities — Fort Collins and Loveland — because the project has been fully funded by the state and FAA.

The stop work order pertains to the active certification testing and allowed the vendor to do what it needed to achieve compliance with requirements and restart the certification testing process. It also allowed the FAA to continue supporting and paying for air traffic control services at the airport.

The new visibility requirements were the most significant issues to overcome, but a demonstration to the FAA in April seemed to show the issue has been resolved, former airport director Jason Licon said in May.

Ruppel was optimistic this wasn't the end of the tower project. "It isn't necessarily a surprise, we knew it could happen," he said. "The expectation is that if it did happen, we would work with the FAA and state to look at other vendors. There are several out there."

The state, which has spent $8.8 million on the tower project, also remains committed to FNL, said CDOT Aeronautics Director David Ulane. "We are obviously vested in seeing some return on that investment, which is why we are ardent supporters of the concept."

It's not just about the remote tower in Loveland, Ulane said, but other airports that could benefit from the technology, including Colorado's mountain airports that lack traditional towers.

"While we are disappointed to see Searidge leave the remote tower program we remain optimistic that the cost-effective benefits of remote tower technology will have tremendous value to Colorado's future aviation system, and we intend to vigorously support future development of the technology," Ulane said.

But members of the local airport commission may be running out of patience.

In May, they expressed frustration with the process and asked about developing a "backup plan" if the project were delayed much longer or never got certified.

"The virtual tower is very interesting and innovative," said Jeni Arndt, airport commission vice-chair and Fort Collins mayor. "But at some point, we need a backup plan." She asked for a "drop-dead date" on making progress with the FAA, after which the commission should come up with a contingency plan "for the safety of flights in and out of the airport." That could include building a traditional air traffic control tower.

If the remote tower plan is scrubbed, it could take three to five years to fund, design and build a traditional tower and cost upwards of $15 million, Ulane said. If a traditional tower is built, the FAA has committed to pay to staff it with air traffic controllers.

Airport officials became more concerned about the FAA's commitment to their proposal after it shut down the country's only other remote air traffic control tower in Leesburg, Virginia, in March.

The FAA announced it would end the remote air traffic control tower program in Leesburg, telling a local news station that “the company sponsoring the remote tower technology at Leesburg Executive Airport decided not to continue the systems design approval process.”

The tower in Leesburg was developed by Saab, Inc., a private company that works to create “world-leading products, services and solutions including military and civil security,” while the tower in Loveland was commissioned by the Colorado Department of Transportation and the FAA, meaning they had more control over operations.

Because of the operational differences and the fact that the tower at FNL “has more functionality,” airport officials at the time were optimistic the remote tower wouldn’t meet the same fate as Leesburg’s.

The future of the remote tower was not on the Airport Commission agenda for Thursday's meeting, but a brief mention of Searidge's action was included on Ruppel's monthly report.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Partner for Northern Colorado Regional Airport remote tower pulls out