The FAA will embark on an ambitious plan at three years to modernize American air traffic control systems and eliminate “obsolete technologies that are unable to respond” to modern requests, officials announced Thursday.
The federal government was under pressure to respond to the concerns of travelers following fatal accidents, current delays and a recent revelation that the Newark airspace controllers lost all contact with pilots last week after a copper wiring failure which transmits the Radar data from New Yorklphie Tracon.
President Donald Trump said he sympathizes with passengers trapped in airports due to air traffic delays.
“I’m sorry what you are going through with the terminals, but we will have them repaired,” said Trump during a telephone call with the Secretary of Transport Sean Duffy.
Trump said too much data on air traffic and communications are going through “the equipment that comes from the 1960s if you can believe it, does not even associate itself with the plane”.
Duffy has recognized that the administration will need considerable help from Capitol Hill.
“I need help. I can’t do it by myself and it will take help from the congress to get there,” he said. “So, to do it in three or four years, we need all the money in advance.”
American representatives Sam Graves and Rick Larsen, the first Republican and Democrat of the House Transport Committee, appeared with Duffy and promised to make a bipartite effort.
“We have talked about the way this effort extends, sometimes administrations. We do not want the effort to extend over the generations,” said Larsen, a democrat representing a district north of Seattle.
“Democrats will be ready to stand with you, Sean, to improve the security of American aviation,” he added.
The FAA said that ever -increasing consumer travel requests make these upgrades an absolute necessity.
“As users of the National Airpace System (NAS) increase, the FAA air traffic system is based on obsolete technologies that are unable to respond to requests,” the FAA said in a statement on Thursday.
“These obsolete systems show their age – which leads to delays and ineffectiveness. The lack of funding for major investments in key air traffic infrastructure, such as radars, telecommunications and facilities, now puts the aviation sector in danger.”
The FAA provides for an accelerated “complete replacement” of its current time division of time division network (TDM) to an Internet protocol, by 2028, in the hope of straightening and protecting communications on the highly frequented air traffic channels, officials said.
Certain vocal air traffic communication systems are carried out on “inherited radios” over 30 years old and “rely on obsolete analog technology” and should be replaced by 2027, officials said.
The government is also looking to build six new ATC “cutting -edge” ATC centers for the first time since “the 1960s, FAA said.
The FAA also intends to quickly modernize surveillance systems as “618 Air FAA air radar systems” exceed their planned lifespan “.
The requests of all these systems are only growing, said the government.
“The agency needs larger technological investments to better adapt to the increase in commercial spaces and the back -to -school activity and the activity of unmanned aircraft systems,” FAA said.
The public flying more and more worried following several accidents this year.
An American Eagle Jet and a Black Hawk military helicopter collided in the air above Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport outside Washington, DC, killing the 67 people on the two crafts on January 29.
An air ambulance crashed in the northeast of Philadelphia on February 1, killing seven people and injuring about two dozen.
Bering Air Flight 445 crashed on its way to Unalakleet, in Alaska, in Nome on February 6, killing the 10 people on board.
And 21 people were injured in February when an airplane overturned to land at Toronto Pearson International Airport.
Beings dear to some The Reagan National Tragedy appeared to the event to support modernization.
“We mourn with you, and we are going to be with you now and in the long term,” said the CEO of American Airlines, Robert Isom.
“This accident should never have happened. Thank you for being here because it uses this moment to really do great things in the future.”
