A former senior FAA official who helped close New York’s airspace on Sept. 11, 2001, is urging Congress to finance a major upgrade of the country’s air traffic control system. His call followed equipment failures that prompted a nationwide ground stop.
Mike McCormick, a former FAA air traffic executive, said the outage on Friday showed how difficult it is to modernize aging technology while keeping the system running. Updating it, he said, is a bit like changing a car tire while the car is still moving.
McCormick said newer equipment overwhelmed older systems, overloading network switches and related telecommunications software. That caused communication issues and, eventually, the nationwide halt to flights.
He supports funding to update the air traffic control system, saying it needs to handle both today’s demands and those expected in the future. Flights have resumed, but he cautioned that it may take at least 48 hours for aircraft, passengers, baggage and crews to get back into position and for operations to return to normal.
At a news conference Saturday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said the outage began during routine maintenance at a remote FAA facility. A contractor was replacing old copper lines with fiber-optic cables when a replacement router overloaded the agency’s telecommunications network, causing problems with radar and radio systems. They said investigators had found no evidence of a cyberattack.
Duffy criticized the contractor’s performance and said he plans to ask Congress for detailed funding to improve telecommunications, as well as aging runways and control towers. He said the FAA’s system, the contractor’s work or the equipment had failed to meet the demands of the situation and contributed to the outages.
Aviation experts said the decision to stop flights also demonstrated the safety measures built into the air traffic system. Josh Schirard, a commercial pilot and head of law enforcement at Byrna Technologies, said the response put passenger safety ahead of convenience. He praised pilots, controllers and flight crews for bringing aircraft safely to the ground.
Schirard said the system’s infrastructure, aircraft, crews and backup procedures worked together to help land about 3,500 planes and more than a million travelers within hours.
Retired United Airlines pilot Scott Pattillo said a nationwide ground stop would have been startling, especially given its echoes of the Sept. 11 attacks. Still, he said a pilot’s first priority would be to stay calm and follow training.
As Pattillo understood it, the outage affected radar information and radio communications used by controllers managing aircraft at high altitude. Airport towers and controllers guiding arriving planes relied on different technology and were not affected in the same way. That meant aircraft already in the air could continue on their assigned routes and land safely.
Pattillo said pilots need to remain predictable and stick to their procedures. He also backed the decision to ground flights nationwide, saying it was the right response once the expected level of safety could no longer be assured.
