CNN
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Air traffic controllers repeatedly rang about serious safety issues affecting Newar Liberty International Airport since last summer and the face of telecommunications halts affecting Newar Liberty International Airport months before widespread delays and flight cancellations at the airport this week.
One controller wrote in a previously unreported statement in August that Luck was able to prevent a “catastrophic mid-air collision” after a communications collapse occurred as multiple planes were routed to the same area to avoid thunderstorms.
And several times last year, the Newark Approach Controller lost its radar or radio service and was unable to speak to the plane it was tracking. One controller told the pilot in November, according to a recording of Air Traffic Audio.
These issues appear to have peaked last week with radar and radio losses for around 90 seconds at air traffic locations. This is an episode in which multiple controllers have been traumatized from work, leading to an ongoing Newark meltdown.
Now, controllers and aviation experts say the authorities should have paid attention to previous warnings regarding the problems of the complex and sensitive systems that lead to one of America's busiest airspace. These issues appear to have gotten worse last summer when Newark's approach controller moved to Philadelphia.
“I've never seen anything like this,” said the Newark Approach Controller, who has been involved in air traffic control for over 20 years and has requested that he remain anonymous as a current employee. “We're playing Russian roulette.”
For decades, an air traffic controller has been in a facility that oversees flights to and from three major airports in the New York City area: John F. Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark. However, the site has suffered from a staffing shortage, part of a wider shortage of controllers that have been hit by airports across the United States in recent years.
In July, the Federal Aviation Administration moved around 20 controllers overseeing flights to and from Newark. These controllers have moved from their Long Island facility to a new site in Philadelphia. The change was opposed by some controllers, but the FAA said at the time it would help address the issue of staffing and increased air traffic congestion.
Within a few weeks, at least half a dozen controllers reported what was described as a serious safety issue caused by a failure to cooperate between two locations about 100 miles apart.
They described the incident in a report submitted to NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System. This allows aerospace industry employees to flag safety issues anonymously. The report does not include identifying information about the flight or when the exact incident occurred. Additionally, details of the report have not been necessarily verified by government investigators.
Still, the report draws a dramatic picture of the controllers who are seriously concerned by what they have explained about safety practices.
In one incident in August, an air traffic controller with 13 years of experience said both the Long Island-based controller overseeing Lagardia Airport and the Philadelphia-based controller overseeing Newark had rerouteed pilots through the same area to avoid thunderstorms. The report said that they no longer worked “in the same room” between the two airports overseeing the two airports, which struggled to coordinate, leading to a “very dangerous” situation.
“The fact that these aircraft converged at the same altitude between dangerous thunderstorms on the left and right is nothing but luck, the fact that there were no catastrophic mid-air collisions,” the controller writes.
They argued that sending Newark controllers back to Long Island was “the only way to correct the many safety hazards that arise from splitting this air traffic business.”
Another controller at the Long Island Site said in the report that the FAA only provided the controller with a single short briefing on the movement of colleagues to Philadelphia, and officials had told the team there were no changes to their operations. However, on the first day of missions based on the new setup, the controller realized that it had to change the way aircraft liability handoffs were entered.
“I'm absolutely umb-worthy,” the controller writes. “The FAA should be totally embarrassed that they did not properly explain the controller briefly about this change. Not having an EWR controller in the same room as the US does not cause much damage to safety and efficiency.”
The third controller wrote in August that the Philadelphia Newark controller entered space supervised by the Long Island facility without flagging flights to colleagues under typical procedures.
The movement of the controller “stimulated a very dangerous situation in the airspace of the extremely complex NYC area,” writes the controller, who has 18 years of experience. “The previous EWR area needs to go back,” they added, moving to the Long Island facility.
At least one pilot also complained about the impact of the movement. In explaining the landing that was cancelled in Newark in August, the pilot wrote that having a Philadelphia-based airport controller “introducing unnecessary additional workloads to pilots and increasing the likelihood of errors occurring.”
Timothy Johnson, a senior assistant professor of aviation at Hampton University and a former air traffic controller and training manager for the U.S. Air Force, reviewed the CNN report and said it should have been a “red flag.”
“I have seen direct proximity in keeping things smooth,” Johnson said. “Removing controllers from shared spaces will result in loss of rapid verbal coordination and instantaneous problem resolution, especially in layered, time-dependent airspace, similar to the New York Metro area.”
In a statement Wednesday, the FAA did not respond to criticism from controllers and experts, but said it was taking “immediate steps to improve operational reliability” in Newark by increasing controller staffing and upgrade technology at its Philadelphia location.
Audio and other records show that most safety reports occurred within weeks of their travel to Philadelphia, but new air traffic control sites also faced repeated outages the following month.
The controller relies on Long Island radar that sends data to Philadelphia via telecommunications lines. He told two air traffic controllers that the feed had broken down at least twice and potentially three times after the move.
FAA Air Traffic Control Alerts show that airports are repeatedly facing delays caused by equipment and communication problems. According to the alert, in late August, Newark stopped its ground shutdown “due to ongoing equipment issues.” The following month, another ground stop alert cited “equipment/stop,” saying officials were “assessing potential radar outages.”
According to Air Traffic Audio from the website Liveatc.net, the controller overseeing Newark was silent for more than two minutes, and one of the radio outages appeared to have occurred on November 6th, when it was first released by YouTube Channel Vasaviation in November. Several pilots pointed out that they hadn't heard anything from the controllers that were to oversee their approach to the airport. “There's no answer,” one pilot added, “It appears he's not talking to anyone.”
After the radio returned, the controller seemed unsure whether the pilot could hear them.
“I just lost all the frequencies and communications here,” one controller later said, “Listen to everyone. Be really careful. Is there anyone other than United 1560, 1043, or 2192 who can hear me this frequency?”
One controller who oversaw the Newark approach at the Philadelphia site that night told CNN there was “madness” as the controller scrambled to warning other nearby airports about FedEx planes that overshooted Newark's flight path to busy LaGuardia airspace. He said he still has nightmares about all the scenarios that could have been unfolded during the halt.
In a statement, FedEx said the crew “abided air traffic control instructions before landing safely,” adding that they were “committed to maintaining the highest safety standards.”
Michael McCormick, aviation professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, said these communication obstacles are far more concerning than reports made during the summer of the relocation.
The November suspension was “a warning,” McCormick said. “Losing radio communication for a few minutes means you need to look at something and get it done in detail.”
The recurring communication problems continued into the New Year. In February, the FAA alert said, “Users can expect delays in arrivals to Newark Airport/holds up to 45 minutes in the air due to frequency and communications lines issues.” Another alert was issued in early April regarding delays due to “communication issues.”
Finally, on April 28th, Newark's controller lost radar service for about 90 seconds and was unable to communicate with the pilot for about a minute. The failure was caused by a failure of copper wiring that sends information from Long Island to Philadelphia, another source said.
After the incident, at least three controllers, one supervisor and trainees took 45 days of mental health leave. The result has led to an even more important staffing shortage at the Newark Approach Control Site, which has forced airlines to delay or cancel hundreds of flights last week, turning the situation that was causing a surprise to the island's air traffic controller community into a national headache.
The FAA said in a statement Wednesday that it plans to add three new “high-bandwidth communications connections” from New York to Philadelphia, replacing copper wire with fiber optic technology, and deploying backup systems to provide more speed and reliability. In the long run, Transport Secretary Sean Duffy has committed to a complete restructuring of the country's air traffic control system, which he says is more reliable than the current outdated technology.
However, aviation expert Johnson said the FAA should reevaluate its decision to move its controllers to Philadelphia in the first place.
“This current configuration seems to be increasing complexity without adequate safety margins,” he said. “Relying on human heroes through structural vulnerabilities is not a way to stay safe.”
The Newark Approach Controller, who is on duty during the November incident, told CNN he is constantly working under his watch in fear of a fatal crash. He said the FAA ignored warnings about safety issues, and he argued that failure could have been avoided if the agency listened to the controllers that opposed the move.
“At the end of the day, I just want some working equipment,” he said. “I don't want to kill people. That's my biggest fear.”
Yahya Abou-Ghazala, Aaron Cooper and Pete Muntean of CNN contributed to this report.
