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A TELECOMMUNICATIONS disaster left 20 pilots unable to speak with air traffic controllers for up to six minutes, sources have warned.
The terrifying technical glitch at Denver International Airport follows two communication outages at Newark’s airport.
An extensive outage on Monday caused up to 20 pilots headed towards Denver airport to experience difficulties in contacting air traffic controllers, reported the Denver-based ABC affiliate Denver7.
The broadcaster, referencing “multiple inside sources,” noted that the outage took place around 2 p.m., which “left between 15 and 20 aircraft unable to communicate with air traffic control at a critical time.”
This was due to multiple radio transmitter outages while they were descending, they claimed.
Disaster was averted when a controller was fortunately able to contact one pilot on a “guard line” – essentially an emergency channel.
This system is normally used when a pilot is in distress.
The workaround enabled the pilot to then contact other landing aircraft to change frequencies.
Alarmingly, an inside source informed Denver 7 that when the technical issue happened, four frequencies from the two primary towers at the Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center in Longmont were already down.
This exacerbated the tense situation as air traffic controllers had been communicating with approaching pilots on their backup fifth frequency, which then also conked out.
The critical control center usually ensures planes have enough space as they start to land.
Longmont, based in Colorado, encompasses approximately 285,000
square miles of airspace over portions of nine states: Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Sources said that failing old equipment was to blame for the botch-up.
Denver still had radar coverage, but that’s like watching a car crash happen and not be able to do anything about it
That meant that traffic control was whittled down to its last frequency to use when communicating directly with pilots.
“When you’re down to the last available redundancy, what happens next, when that goes out?” asked David Riley, retired air traffic controller.
He added, “The scariest part is that it’s not unique to this situation, these kinds of outages happen around the country all the time.”
Riley, the former head of the local air traffic controllers union, also said, “It’s one thing to lose track of one airplane because you can’t communicate with them.
“But to lose track of all of the airplanes that you had communication with?
“And from my understanding, in this situation, they still had radar coverage, but that’s like watching a car crash happen and not be able to do anything about it.
“It’s not acceptable, and the biggest problem is the fact that the FAA does not have stable funding to replace this equipment and maintain it in an appropriate fashion.”
Denver 7 said it had learned that the main transmitter has been “out for at least three days.”
The U.S. Sun has contacted Denver airport and the FAA for comment.
A spokesperson for the airport referred this paper to the FAA, which replied that a statement was being prepared for press queries.
The incident occurred two months after American Airlines passengers were forced to escape a burning plane by climbing onto the wing at Denver.
Recent ‘cluster’ of plane crashes
A NUMBER of recent plane crashes in the US have left Americans terrified of traveling by air.
However, aviation expert and attorney Jason Matzus told The U.S. Sun the crashes can be attributed to “random clustering.”
“While these events are tragic, the likely explanation is simply ‘random clustering,’ which occurs when multiple crashes occur over a short period, warping our general perception and causing us to think that there is an increasing trend in plane crashes,” Matzus said.
“When in reality these crashes, despite being so close together, are merely coincidental and not caused by a systemic safety issue.”
The short period Matzus is referring to is just a matter of three weeks. The recent aviation mishaps include:
January 29 – A military helicopter and American Airlines plane collided at the Washington DC airport and killed 67 people
January 31 – An air ambulance carrying a six-year-old girl and her mom crashed onto a street in Philadelphia, killing seven people in total
February 5 – A Japan Airlines flight hit a parked Delta plane at Seattle SeaTac Airport and no one was injured
February 6 – A small commuter plane on its way to Nome, Alaska, crashed and killed all 10 people on board
February 10 – Motley Crue singer Vince Neil’s private jet collided into another plane, killing the pilot and injuring four others
February 17 – A Delta plane crashed onto the runway at Toronto Pearson International Airport, miraculously killing no one but injuring 21
February 19 – Two planes collided at Marana Airport in Arizona, killing two people
March 13 – American Airlines passengers were forced to escape a burning plane by climbing onto the wing at Denver – there weren’t any serious injuries reported
And the communication problem in Denver comes after two outages at the Newark airport in New Jersey – including one lasting for 90 seconds.
Air traffic controllers directing planes into Newark briefly lost their radar on the morning of May 9 for the second time in two weeks.
FAA bosses said the radar at its facility in Philadelphia – that directs planes in and out of Newark airport – went black for 90 seconds at 3:55 a.m. A similar outage occurred on April 28.
The initial radar outage led to hundreds of flights being canceled or delayed at Newark airport.
Five controllers went on trauma leave – worsening the existing shortage – as a result of the horrific situation they faced.
PASSENGER SAFETY
Such incidents are raising concerns about passenger safety.
Especially as – according to reports – radio contact with pilots is failing nearly every week, terrified air traffic controllers have warned.
Aviation expert William McGee told NPR on Sunday that the FAA “is an agency that has been understaffed and underfunded for four decades.
“Newark Liberty International Airport is sort of the poster child for everything that’s wrong with air traffic control.
“In the United States, we have the most complex and largest air traffic control network in the world, and we lag dozens… of other nations in terms of the number of controllers and in terms of the infrastructure and the technology.”
NEW SYSTEM
On Tuesday, the FAA said in a statement in regards to Newark, “There is a nationwide shortage of air traffic controllers, and the FAA for years has not met the staffing goal for the area that works Newark airspace.
“Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy has made air traffic controller hiring a top priority.”
Duffy this month promised that the Department of Transportation would build a “brand new air traffic control system” by 2028.
More than 4,600 new high-speed connections are to be installed, while 618 radars will be replaced across the country.
Officials developed the ambitious overhaul after a deadly midair collision in January between a passenger jet and an Army helicopter killed 67 people in the skies over Washington, D.C.
