The FAA Will Fund Transmitters on 3,000 Airport Vehicles So Controllers Can See Them on the Runway

On September 14, 2026, the Federal Aviation Administration announced $1.1 billion in airport grants, including $10.9 million to fit 3,000 airport vehicles at 61 airports with transmitters. The devices let air traffic controllers identify and track those vehicles on runways and taxiways.

The equipment is called a vehicle movement area transmitter, or VMAT. The FAA’s release did not name the 61 airports; it points readers to an online map of the grants instead.

The money is part of 280 Airport Improvement Program grants to airports in 46 states and three territories. The largest single award listed is $30.7 million for runway reconstruction at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta, alongside $43 million shared by 12 airports for noise mitigation.

“These grants will allow airports to deploy VMATs, that provide our air traffic controllers with greater situational awareness of aircraft and vehicles moving on the airport surface,” said FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford.

Why the Tower Cannot See Some Trucks

Busy airports give controllers a live map of the ground. The FAA’s ASDE-X and ASSC surveillance systems run at 44 of the busiest US airports, and its newer Surface Awareness Initiative, or SAI, recently reached its 100th airport on the way to 220.

Those systems see a vehicle well only if it is broadcasting. At ASDE-X and ASSC airports, a vehicle without a transmitter appears as a blue diamond with no identity or call sign, the FAA says.

At SAI airports it is worse. SAI builds its picture from ADS-B signals alone, so an unequipped vehicle is not displayed at all, according to the FAA’s guidance to airports.

A VMAT fixes that. It is an ADS-B unit mounted on the vehicle, typically on the 978 MHz link, that broadcasts a precise GPS position and call sign to the tower display and to nearby aircraft.

The LaGuardia Crash Behind the Push

The FAA says it sped up the transmitter program after March 22, 2026. That night, Air Canada Express flight 8646, a Jazz Aviation CRJ-900, struck an airport fire truck on Runway 4 at LaGuardia after landing.

The fire truck had no transmitter, the FAA said. The captain and first officer were killed, and 39 people were taken to hospitals, six with serious injuries, according to the NTSB, which is still investigating.

The crash has also led the FAA to move to fire two LaGuardia controllers.

In May, the FAA committed $16.5 million to equip its own roughly 1,900 vehicles at the ASDE-X, ASSC and SAI airports. This week’s grants pay for vehicles owned by the airports themselves.

How Big a Step 3,000 Vehicles Is

The number is large against the starting point. As of January 2024, 2,102 airport and FAA vehicles at 33 airports carried the transmitters, the Transportation Department’s Inspector General reported in March 2025.

Vehicles are a meaningful slice of the problem. Of the 1,758 runway incursions the FAA recorded in fiscal 2024, 17.4 percent were vehicle or pedestrian deviations, where a driver or person entered the movement area without clearance, the Inspector General found.

A transmitter does not stop a driver or a controller from making a mistake. What it changes is whether the tower’s display shows a labeled truck on the runway, so a conflict alert or a second look has something to work with.