Six-Minute Outage at Denver Airport Leaves 20 Pilots Stranded in Latest Air Traffic Control Crisis
A six-minute outage at Denver International Airport earlier this week left 20 pilots stranded in what is being called the latest in a series of frightening air traffic control failures. The outage, caused by several radio transmitters going dark, meant that pilots could not communicate with air traffic controllers as they were descending into the airport on Monday afternoon.
As reported by ABC7, sources say that 20 pilots were affected by the frequency outage, which left them unable to reach air traffic controllers. The situation was resolved when a controller managed to make contact with one aircraft on a “guard line,” typically used in emergency situations when a pilot is in distress. This allowed the pilot to relay messages to nearby planes, instructing them to switch to different radio frequencies.
At the time of the outage, controllers at the Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center were already operating on a backup frequency after four other frequencies had gone out of service. One source highlighted the gravity of the situation, stating, “It’s one thing to lose track of one airplane because you can’t communicate with them, but to lose track of all the airplanes you had communication with…”
David Riley, a retired air traffic controller, added, “From my understanding, in this situation, they still had radar coverage, but that’s like watching a car crash happen and not being able to do anything about it.”
This mishap is just the latest incident in a series of air traffic control issues. The Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey has also faced repeated outages, leading to widespread flight cancellations and delays. The ongoing issues have sparked concerns about the reliability of the nation’s aging air traffic control infrastructure.
In response to these failures, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy recently announced plans for a multi-billion-dollar overhaul to modernize the air traffic control system. The Department of Transportation is seeking funding from Congress to replace 618 radars, install 4,600 new high-speed connections, and update the computers used by controllers.
Despite these plans, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials have indicated that it could take over a year to complete the necessary infrastructure updates and recruit the required number of controllers. Currently, the FAA is short approximately 3,000 air traffic controllers and is in the process of upgrading from outdated copper telecommunications wires to a new fiber-optic network.
Franklin McIntosh, FAA Air Traffic Organization Deputy COO, revealed that the agency is on track to hire only 2,000 controllers by the end of this year, not enough to address the existing shortage. “We have to account for attrition,” McIntosh explained, adding, “I think we’ll finally start gaining traction this year, where we outpace attrition, and then we’ll start seeing positive gains in controllers over the next 18 to 24 months.”
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Sources: AirGuide Business airguide.info, bing.com, nypost.com