With hundreds of delays and cancellations over the past week, flying out of Newark-Liberty International Airport has been a nightmare. Senator Chuck Schumer on Monday called for an investigation into what happened at the New York City-area airport. However, the facility’s air traffic controllers point to outdated technology in their understaffed tower. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the controllers’ union, stated that members lost radar and communications with incoming planes for 90 seconds on April 28.
It can’t be overstated how dangerous it is for air traffic control to go down for any period of time at a major international airport. The fired copper wire is believed to be the cause of the outage, but dated computers from the 1980s with stereotypically green-tinted monochrome monitors don’t give FAA personnel any confidence while on the job. Newark is already deal with reduced capacity with a runway under renovation and United Airlines, the airport’s most significant carrier, is encouraging its passengers to fly out of other airports in the area. Paul Rinaldi, former NATCA president, told New York magazine:
“Usually every day, they have to update something on it. And when they have to update something on it, they use either a five-inch or a three-and-a-half-inch floppy disc.”
A few new copper wires isn’t going to fix this
To compound issues, Newark’s air traffic controllers are going on leave for their own well-being. Under federal law, controllers are allowed to take a 45-day leave to deal with traumatic events, like the tower outage. A fifth of Newark’s controllers took traumatic leave, exacerbating the staffing shortage at the airport. The FAA announced a plan to ensure this never happens again by replacing the copper wires and adding more data, but this doesn’t resolve the underlying problem of outdated technology. The federal agency stated last year that the average air traffic control tower in the United States was 40 years old.
The urgency of improving air traffic control ramped up after the fatal mid-air crash at Reagan National Airport in January. The collision between a regional jet and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter was partially blamed on inadequate ATC staffing. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy hopes that a surge in candidate controllers and streamlined training will relieve staffing shortages in a shorter time span than multiple years. While these efforts are a step in the right direction, they’re not the massive investment needed to bring air traffic control into the 21st century.
