In a recent afternoon in Philadelphia, an air traffic controller began shouting that he had lost radar feed for airplanes flying in and outside Newark Liberty International Airport.
Some of his colleagues still had radar, but their radios went dead, causing frantic calls to their counterparts in New York, urging them to keep their planes away from Newark’s airspace.
Then, for 30 broken seconds until the radios returned, there was nothing more to do than hope – as they had no means of saying pilots how to avoid crashing their planes.
Shortly afterwards, a auditor discovered a trainee who had directed Newark’s release of just a few minutes earlier, shaking in the hallway.
This was the chaotic scene on Monday, April 28, according to several people who were present when the auditors worked in the airspace for Newark lost their media to do their jobs.
The failure of the system The auditors are based on the left of many of those who are in service that day with extreme stress, demanding a mental health respite that has caused low levels of staffing for days. It has also caused more than 1,000 flights to one of the nation’s busiest airports to cancel or delay, letting some passengers feel frustrated and abandoned.
Staff struggles are particularly remarkable because the federal aviation decision to transfer some of the Newark Airok Air Force Control companies in Philadelphia last summer was intended to increase the number of heads.
The Nation’s air traffic control system has been infected with chronic malfunction. The auditor’s ranks were exhausted with retirement and a cessation of education during the pandemic. Since then, hiring and certification of new auditors has been difficult. Existing auditors are tired and even sick of severe stress and long hours, the New York Times said. Some have avoided searching for medical care because this could endanger the clearances of healthcare they need to do the project. Circle work is common, especially amid diseases, family turmoil or safety phobias.
His interruption and effects on Newark have caused public anger.
The Sean Duffy Transport Secretary, who oversees FAA, called for “a brand new air traffic control system”. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the leader of minorities, said FAA “is really a mess”. Scott Kirby, Managing Director of United Airlines, who is Newark’s largest user, said the airport “cannot handle the number of aircraft scheduled to operate there” and accused auditors who “left the job”.
However, today’s and former auditors, who called for anonymity for fear of retaliation, and the people who saw last week’s vacation said the time of the auditors away from their duties was suitable under the conditions, given the difficulty of working under this pressure. They also described the disgusting incident as the culmination of the nine months of technical malfunctions that have eroded the confidence of the Newark team in the credibility of the tools necessary to do his work.
Last August, in an incident that was later partially accused of a third -party technician who accidentally cut a remote location data, a controller lost the radar for about 90 seconds, according to people there. A week later, the radar fields were frozen several times, according to FAA activity records examined by the Times. Then, about eight months later, the April 28 holidays, which legislators accused of a “fried” copper wire, happened.
“From what we can gather right now, the communication lines that supply the Newark, which are inhabited in Philadelphia, fail,” Dave SPERO, president of the Air Force Specialists, a union that represents the technicians of transport technicians, said in an interview. He said the contractors, not FAA itself, were responsible for these lines.
FAA has said it is working closely with facilities and sellers to address telecommunications issues throughout the national airspace, especially in the northeast. Mr Duffy said that FAA is “slowing the system” to ensure travelers’ safety in Newark.
FAA acknowledged that some Newark auditors have taken time to deal with the stress of recent holidays. On Tuesday, the organization said it had slowed arrivals and departures in Newark partly due to lack of staffing. He added that “he took immediate action to improve the credibility of work” at the airport, including the installation of new high -range data links, the development of a backup system in Philadelphia and the increase in staff between the Newark Controller classes.
Mr Duffy is expected on Thursday to announce additional details on a planned air traffic review, which he works for from his mid -range collision near Ronald Reagan National Airport outside Washington, killed 67 people.
FAA said in a statement that it had 22 Certified Newark auditors in Philadelphia and almost those in education.
But this is not the whole picture. Due to the mental health license and other staff posts, only 16 certified auditors are currently available to call every day, according to people who are familiar with the situation and more than double this number would usually need to cover all shifts.
Aviation experts say – and FAA recognizes – that there are no quick corrections to the controller’s shortcomings.
Being a controller for a busy airspace, such as Newark, usually requires years of training and experience walnuts and walks in other busy airplanes near large cities.
Even a veteran controller who joined the Newark team from a node such as Atlanta or San Diego would need up to one year of specialized training to become familiar with the shades of Newark’s circulation – which usually includes 80 or more departures and landing at a given time – In addition, Newark auditors handle traffic at smaller regional airports, including one in Teterboro, NJ
The auditors working in the Newark airspace from Philadelphia had to be the solution, not the problem. FAA has argued that relatively low cost of living near Philadelphia would attract more workers who wanted to buy homes or increase families and that the control tower of the Philadelphia International Airport where they would park was recently renovated.
The movement was full of its start. Some auditors resisted leaving their perch on the Westbury, New York, where they had worked with colleagues handling flights inside and outside Laguardia and Kennedy International Airport for years or even decades.
Some auditors who argued in FAA that the relocation would give unjustified difficulties to their families were able to remain in Westbury. Others chose to get their chances in Philadelphia, collecting a $ 100,000 incentives to do so. Their working stations in the new building, which FAA had spent $ 36 million on modernization, were equipped with real -time surveillance technology.
They referred to their new positions on July 28th.
Auditors for Newark initially worked on a reduced flight schedule to smooth out any accumulation. But by mid -August, with resistant summer trips, typical levels of traffic inside and outside Newark had come back and flights went properly.
Then, on August 27, a Newark auditor in Philadelphia lost radar images for about a minute and a half after the technician’s mistake, according to two people at the control hub that day.
The auditor watched half a dozen planes at the moment the radar disappeared, including two jets United Airlines, one of the people who reminded. Without visual images to guide him, he tried to direct pilots from memory, according to three people with knowledge of the incident.
“Beware of all aircraft, radar contact is lost. Contact with radar is lost,” the auditor said, according to a recording of the event.
By the time the radar images returned, they said that two people with the knowledge of the incident, one of the flights were well in the Laguardia airspace and was flying over the Hudson River.
The auditor, who had decades of experience, He retired within a few days from the incident said that the three people with knowledge of the subject.
The problem in Philadelphia continued. Less than a week later, travelers on work day flying in and out of Newark’s delays and a ground stop – a temporary interruption of take -offs and landings – due to non -relevant radar equipment problems, according to FAA, the organization accused “data transmission issues” in the regional system.
These were an evolution of the way in which FAA handled the Newark flight data transfer to Philadelphia when it moved the auditors, according to government and trade union officials. Instead of fueling flight data created in Newark directly to Philadelphia, FAA first provided Westbury and then in Philadelphia from there, officials said.
This meant that the data had to travel further and were also vulnerable to overloading from other nodes to the system that were facing malfunctions, said Mr SPERO, president of the Special Security Union.
“It caused what they call a cataract failure with a target freeze,” SPERO said. It refers to dots representing moving aircraft on radar screens that, according to the FAA logs of that day, froze in various places, causing a notice.
FAA said in a statement that it has created a communication system that would not require Philadelphia’s installation to rely on a New York food.
The auditors said last fall that, while data and inhibitors of the capacity were not their main objection to relocation, it was a source of anxiety. It has only worsened as secluded malfunctions have come to look more than a trend, he said that the people who have seen recent events in Philadelphia.
A controller who was there on April 28 arrived in his car before breaking tears, one of these people said. He has taken time away, this person added, and should be cleared by a mental health professional before he can return.
Walker signal They contributed reports.
