Aviation experts anticipating Elon Musk’s plans to tackle the nation’s antiquated air traffic control system are scratching their heads over the Biden administration’s move to rebuild dozens of aging regional airport towers with “green” replacements instead of cheaper and safer digital technology.

Remote towers, essentially cameras on tall scaffolding, are used widely throughout Europe. Infrared cameras and other advanced equipment can provide safer, less expensive air traffic monitoring, particularly when visibility is low in inclement weather.

The Federal Aviation Administration prohibits the use of remote towers.

Instead, the FAA is sticking with manned airport towers. Under President Biden, it allocated hundreds of millions of dollars for a massive project to build “greener” towers throughout the United States.

In 2023, the FAA selected the Manhattan firm Practice for Architecture and Urbanism to design up to 31 “sustainable” towers at municipal and smaller airports around the U.S. where structures were old and in need of replacement.

It set aside $500 million for the design and early construction of the projects, which were scheduled to break ground last year.

“These new air traffic control towers will mean that smaller airports can handle more flights, more sustainably and more affordably,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said when announcing the project in April 2023. “I look forward to seeing this design go from the drawing board to construction sites across the country, helping our nation’s airports support more travelers, grow their local economies and prepare for the future of low-carbon aviation.”

The winning architectural firm is “dedicated to building ecological, equitable, and joyous communities.” Company officials announced a design plan for all-electric airport control towers. The structures will be built using recycled steel and “renewable mass timber” and will be equipped with geothermal heating and cooling, advanced energy monitoring equipment and other green energy features.

The airports getting the new towers include:

• Key West International Airport (EYW) in Florida.

• Fort Worth International Airport (FTW) in Texas.

• Northeast Philadelphia Airport (PNE).

• Hartford-Brainard Airport (KHFD) in Connecticut.

• Pueblo Memorial Airport (PUB) in Colorado.

• Modesto City-County Airport (MOD) in California.

• Coleman A. Young International Airport (DET) in Detroit.

In seeking design bids, the FAA offered a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” for the winning firm to follow in the path of celebrated architect I.M. Pei, who designed 16 iconic air traffic control towers in 1962.

The FAA request for bids asked firms “to think outside the box, using your innovation and creativity to turn exciting ideas into our new reality.”

The move puzzled some top aviation experts, who say the modern tower design may be more visually exciting and climate-friendly, but it does not address the FAA’s poor track record on technological upgrades and missed a chance to modernize air traffic control safety.

“Nobody official, nobody on the congressional committee questioned it,” Robert W. Poole, director of transportation policy at the Reason Foundation, said of the tower construction plan approved by Congress and signed by Mr. Biden. “It’s just rolling ahead. All of these places would have been ideal sites for remote towers. It’s more effective, safer and cheaper, so how can you turn that down?”

The FAA did not immediately provide a comment for this report.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Monday that President Trump’s government efficiency adviser, SpaceX founder Elon Musk, will visit the Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Virginia to help him “envision how we can make a new, better modern and safer system.”

Mr. Musk may want to consult with Mr. Poole, who helped oversee a 2017 policy brief on remote towers authored by fellow aviation expert Stephen D. Van Beek. The paper reported that remote towers provide “better surveillance at night and in rain, fog or snow conditions” using infrared and other advanced technologies when used in pilot programs. Experienced air traffic controllers favored the remote tower over the conventional tower during simulations.

“A remote tower can improve safety margins and provide operational benefits compared to a conventional tower,” the authors said. The cost is “significantly lower” than building a traditional tower occupied by air traffic controllers, they found.

Remote towers are used throughout Canada and Europe, including airports in Norway, Germany, Hungary, Belgium and Britain.

In 2021, London City Airport became the first major international airport fully controlled by a remote digital air traffic control tower.

Air traffic controllers who use the technology operate from a facility outside the airport, sometimes miles away, and monitor air traffic with cutting-edge cameras and other sensor equipment mounted on tall scaffolding at the airport.

For smaller airports with far less traffic, air traffic controllers can monitor several airports from a single building using an array of digital towers, replacing more expensive manned towers at each airport.

Advocates say the system could enable better and safer air traffic monitoring at dozens of small and regional U.S. airports, many of which are in rural areas and may lack manned towers.

Mr. Van Beek said digital towers could be installed at major U.S. airports to augment manned air traffic control towers, adding another layer of safety on crowded runways and in bad weather.

“The question is whether there is a way to open up this concept inside the FAA, to have them embrace it,” Mr. Van Beek said. “There seems to be, for whatever reason, a reluctance inside the FAA bureaucracy to embrace these tools.”

Mr. Poole said a digital tower with advanced equipment could have prevented a near collision at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in February 2023.

Heavy ground fog made it impossible for an air traffic controller in the tower to spot a Southwest plane in the path of a FedEx jet landing on the same runway. The FedEx pilots detected the plane at the last moment and aborted the landing, narrowly avoiding a collision that could have killed 133 people.

In response to the near miss in Austin, the FAA announced plans to provide regional airports with GPS runway technology installed at larger airports, including Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The equipment provides precise aircraft locations to help prevent runway collisions.

It’s rolling out slowly at the smaller airports.

The FAA said it would implement the technology at Austin and three other midsize airports last year and at additional airports by the end of this year.

The agency has no immediate plans to build remote towers or to install digital towers to augment safety at manned air traffic control towers at any U.S. airport.

In 2022 and 2023, the FAA shut down remote tower technology projects at Colorado Northern Regional Airport and Leesburg Executive Airport in Virginia.

The FAA website said the towers “are not currently approved for use” in U.S. airspace.

• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.