Denver air traffic controllers have lost communications with planes around this large airport for 90 seconds earlier this week and had to be struggled to use the rescue frequencies in the latest failure of the Federal Aviation Administration.
The Denver International Airport Panne has occurred on Monday afternoon and touched communications, and not radar, said FAA air traffic control manager Frank McIntosh on Thursday during a house audience. This communication failure follows two high levels of radar and communications in the past 2 weeks in an installation that leads the planes inside 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.
The representative Robert Garcia of California told McIntosh at the hearing that “whenever there are these breakdowns which now occur more regularly, it is very worrying.”
“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.”
Denver’s failure of communications is the latest failure of the disturbing equipment in the system that provides security aircraft. 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.
Newark airport has generally led the nation in cancellations and delays since its first radar failure on April 28, which also lasted approximately 90 seconds. A second breakdown occurred on May 9. In both cases, the controllers have lost both radar and communications.
The FAA was in the middle of a second day Thursday meetings with the airlines that fly from Newark to cut the flights, because there are not enough controllers to manage all the flights of the schedule now. More than 100 flights were canceled Thursday in Newark.
The officials developed the system upgrading plan after a deadly outdoor collision in January between a jet of passenger and an army helicopter killed 67 people in the sky above Washington, DC Several other accidents this year also put pressure on the officials to act.
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