It has been a scary few months for air travel.
Faltering technology in the air traffic control hub that watches over Newark Liberty International Airport has caused the radar system to fail at least twice in recent weeks. Airplanes have bumped wings in San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
And a number of commercial flights have aborted landings at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport so far this month. On one occasion, it was because an Army helicopter was flying nearby — just months after a plane and a helicopter collided in the same airspace, killing 67 people.
The Federal Aviation Administration’s air traffic employees watch over nearly three million passengers and more than 45,000 flights per day. But the technology they rely on is in some cases wildly outdated. And it’s tough to find people who can operate it.
In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain how we got here.
Glitchy systems
Air traffic controllers rely on two essential things: radar screens, which provide a visual representation of what’s going on in the air, and radio communications, which allow them to talk with pilots.
In certain cases, copper wiring, first developed in the 19th century, is used to transmit data from one place to another. Some systems still rely on floppy disks and compact discs. Flight records are occasionally printed out on slips of paper rather than relayed electronically.
The result is a hodgepodge network of software, parts and wires. Sometimes it works seamlessly; other times a single clipped wire takes out a controller’s radar entirely, leaving pilots with no means to be seen by the people who are supposed to be keeping them out of harm’s way.
Officials said that archaic technology was to blame for the recent outages at Newark. On April 28, some of Newark’s controllers lost both radar and radio. Though the outage lasted just 90 seconds, its effects cascaded for days, causing more than 1,800 flights to be delayed or canceled. Additional equipment outages followed on Friday and again yesterday morning.
Newer technology would make a difference, controllers and government officials say. And Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has called for upgrades. But his modernization effort, announced on Thursday, needs approval from Congress. And it must be installed without disturbing the delicate network of flight monitoring that guides pilots through U.S. airspace 24 hours a day.
Low staffing
Another part of the problem is that the F.A.A.’s air traffic control hubs are chronically understaffed, especially in busy and complex airspaces like New York and Washington. Newark Airport’s work force is no exception.
Last year, in an effort to bulk up the F.A.A.’s staff, the agency moved 24 Newark controllers from their longtime base in Westbury, N.Y., to Philadelphia. The agency hoped the lower cost of living in that area might attract workers. But the relocation has so far been a bust, at least in part because of the equipment problems that are sidelining some workers.
After the April 28 outage at Newark, the controllers were so shaken that they are now taking time off to cope with the stress, people familiar with the matter told me. A trainee who had been in the room during the outage was discovered trembling in a hallway afterward. A controller cried when he got to his car.
The F.A.A. recently raised the starting salary for attendees of its controller training program, and it is offering a special $10,000 bonus to graduates who opt to work in “hard to staff” locations. But the preparations for overseeing an airspace like Newark’s are lengthy, controllers say; it takes years to train a newer employee, and a year or more for an experienced one.
Is it safe to fly?
As the summer travel season looms, a fix feels increasingly urgent.
Of course, flying in the U.S. is still far safer than driving in a car. Thousands of pilots, controllers and other safety workers keep passengers out of harm’s way every day. The midair collision in Washington in January was devastating, but it was also the first accident of that scale since 2009.
But considering the technological shortcomings, the uncertain path to making upgrades and the painful toll those glitches are taking on the controllers, it’s understandable that passengers flying in or out of Newark might now be taking a hard look at their upcoming flight plans.
Related: I spoke about the problems plaguing air traffic control on a recent episode of “The Daily.” You can listen here.
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