Cars and Planes Could Avoid Hazardous Ice and Freezing Rain with New Sensors

Pilots, drivers, and automated safety systems in cars and airplanes could be alerted to icy hazards by a pair of sensors developed at the University of Michigan. Ice on roads causes around 20 percent of weather-related car crashes each year, and ice build-up on planes causes roughly 10 percent of all fatal air carrier crashes by interfering with aerodynamics and controls. For instance, a flight from Brazilian airliner Voepass Linhas Aéreas crashed near São Paulo on August 9, 2024, after the plane’s de-icing systems failed, according to a report in the Aviation Safety Network. An Air France flight also crashed in the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009, after ice blocked the probes that measure the plane’s speed. In both cases, all occupants died.