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- Guess Who's Going to Newark?
I have to go to a family event in the NYC area and I’ll be flying into Newark next week. I’m an aviation nerd but I’m not afraid of flying. That said, I’d never fly to Washington National. Now, I’m questioning my judgment:
The air traffic system meltdown at Newark Liberty International Airport last week “was the most dangerous situation you could have,” according to an air traffic controller on duty that day, as the fallout from the outage stretches into a second week.
The drop in communications at the Philadelphia air traffic control facility on April 28 has resulted in more than a thousand canceled flights and brought renewed scrutiny on the airport’s outdated air traffic control system as multiple controllers take trauma leave amid a national shortage of workers in the crucial role.
Flights arriving to Newark – one of the United States’ busiest airports – were experiencing an average delay of four hours as of Tuesday evening, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which has indicated it expects the disruption to continue.
The air traffic controller, who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity, said he arrived back from a break to find his coworkers recovering from a 60- to 90-second-long outage during which they could not see planes on radar scopes or communicate with pilots.
“I don’t want to say panic because panic isn’t the right word, but it was hectic,” the controller said. “We were trying to figure out what’s working, what’s not.”
James Fallows puts the events in Newark in context with the three more close calls (one with a helicopter, one plane clipping the wingtip of another on the runway at National and at San Francisco). If you don’t subscribe to his Substack, here’s his quick summary:
There’s nothing super sophisticated here: the system already had problems, a bunch of clowns came to town and Dunning-Kreuggered the thing, and now it’s less safe and getting even less safer all the time. Here’s another stupid personnel move, presumably done to enforce loyalty or for some other dumb reason:
The vice chair of the National Transportation Safety Board has been abruptly removed from his position, the White House confirmed Tuesday, a rare move that comes as the federal agency charged with investigating aviation disasters juggles more than 1,000 cases.
The Trump administration removed Alvin Brown a little more than a year after he was sworn in for a term that was expected to end in 2026. The White House didn’t say why he was removed and Brown has not publicly commented.
The decision comes as NTSB investigates nearly 1,250 active cases across the U.S., while supporting more than 160 foreign investigations, according to March testimony by NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy. […]
Jeff Guzzetti, a former NTSB and FAA accident investigator, said he has never seen an administration remove a member of the board.
In addition to removing NTSB members, having Fox News hosts (Kegseth and Duffy) running the show is probably not the best way to ensure safety. Clearly, no lessons have been learned about appointing competent people in any department, since Jeanne Pirro is going to be the US Attorney for DC.
As for me, I’ll be drinking $20 G&T’s on the way to Newark, so at least I’ll be mellowed out if we go down in flames.
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