Denver air traffic controllers lost communications with planes for 90 seconds earlier this week and had to rush to use the backup frequencies in the latest failure of the Federal Aviation Administration equipment.
The failure in a control installation that runs the planes around Denver International Airport on Monday afternoon, affected communications, not the radar, said FAA air traffic chief Frank McIntosh on Thursday at a house audience. This communications failure follows two high levels of radar and communications in the past 2 weeks in an installation in Philadelphia which leads the planes in and outside Newark airport, New Jersey.
The FAA said in a press release that the Denver Air Route traffic control center had lost communications for about 90 seconds. McIntosh said that primary and main backup frequencies had dropped, the controllers had to turn to an emergency frequency to communicate.
“The controllers used another frequency to relay the instructions to the pilots. The planes remained securely separated and there was no impact on operations,” said FAA.
California Robert Garcia representative told McIntosh at the hearing that these breakdowns occur more regularly and that it is worrying each time.
“We know that there are endowment and equipment problems with air traffic control,” said Garcia. “We know that the problems have rose decades in some cases, but it is always an absolutely shocking system failure and we need immediate solutions.”
Last week, the Trump administration announced a plan of several billion dollars to revise an air traffic control system which is based on obsolete equipment. Air trips are safe even if the air traffic control system is old, but Newark’s problems were unacceptable and could have been prevented if the system had been improved earlier, said SEAN DUFFY transport secretary in an editorial on Thursday in Newsweek.
Newark airport has generally led the nation in flight, cancellations and delays since the radar and the communications went on April 28 and again on May 9. A third similar problem occurred on Sunday, but this time, the backup system worked and kept the radar online.
“Itinerant public security cannot continue to be endangered,” said the Democrat and member of the Rick Larsen ranking after the hearing. “The problems with our system have gone through administrations, but safety improvements cannot extend over generations. We need action now. ”
The FAA and the airlines that fly away from Newark met Thursday to discuss the flight cup because there are not enough controllers to manage them all. More than 140 flights were canceled Thursday in Newark.
The officials developed the plan to upgrade the air traffic control system after a deadly open-air collision in January between a jet of passengers and an army helicopter killed 67 people in the sky above Washington, DC several other accidents of this year have also exerted pressure on the officials to act.
