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Science & Technology

Denver air traffic controllers temporarily lose radio communications with aircraft

2025-05-16

Secretary Pete Buttigieg was too busy working out the details of chest feeding his adopted child to do anything about the known problem, so it festered. Thank goodness the Trump administration is finally working on it, which means will gets lots more of these stories until the new system is slotted into place.

[FoxBusinessNews] FAA examining 90-second communications blackout amid growing concerns over outdated aviation infrastructure

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is investigating how pilots flying into Denver International Airport temporarily lost contact with air traffic controllers on Monday.

The FAA told FOX Business that part of the Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) experienced a loss of communications for approximately 90 seconds around 1:50 p.m. local time on Monday after both transmitters that cover a segment of airspace went down.

Sources told Denver7 that as many as 20 pilots were unable to speak with ATC. However, the FAA said the controllers used another frequency to relay instructions to pilots and that the aircraft remained safely separated. Controllers used another frequency to relay instructions to pilots, and there were no impacts to operations, the FAA added.

According to its website, the Denver ARTCC covers approximately 285,000 square miles of airspace over some or all of the following states: Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana.

The air traffic control system has been under immense pressure for years, given the persisting staffing shortages, outdated technology and underinvestment in critical infrastructure. These shortfalls have come into focus in recent weeks as New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport, the second-busiest airport in the New York airport system, had back-to-back outages within a two-week period, each lasting about 90 seconds.

Air traffic controllers at the FAA facility in Philadelphia lost radar and radio communications while directing planes to Newark at the end of April and for a second time in May. Air traffic controllers at the Philadelphia TRACON facility work on Newark arrivals and departures.

Aside from the longstanding issues with the air traffic control system, Newark's challenges have been further strained by ongoing construction at the airport, which leaves it temporarily operating with only one of two parallel runways.

In a previous statement to FOX Business, the FAA acknowledged that the "antiquated air traffic control system is affecting our workforce."

Following the first outage at Newark, the FAA began working to improve the reliability of operations at the airport, including accelerating technological and logistical improvements and increasing controller staffing.

It began slowing arrivals and departures at the airport to account for staffing and technology issues at the Philadelphia TRACON facility.

In the meantime, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and acting Administrator Chris Rocheleau announced a slew of initiatives to improve operations in Newark and build an all-new, state-of-the-art air traffic control system.

Among their objectives, Duffy and Rocheleau are looking to add three new high-bandwidth telecommunications connections between the New York-based STARS and Philadelphia TRACON, which they believe will improve speed, reliability and redundancy.

STARS is an FAA system that processes radar data for Newark and is based in New York. Telecommunications lines feed this data from New York to the Philadelphia TRACON.

Duffy projected that building an all-new, state-of-the-art air traffic control system will take three to four years.

Posted by:Skidmark

#6 Please do atempt to tell me government recruitment and promotion percentage goals do not (or have not) existed for several decades.

DEI has been around for a while.

Posted by: Besoeker 2025-05-16 12:05

#5 Hadn’t the previous administration flat out forbidden qualified wrong-category applicants even from being allowed to test? I seem to recall one of he first things the new secretary did was put out a call for those people to please reapply as soon as can be managed.

Posted by: trailing wife 2025-05-16 11:41

#4 I wouldn't be surprised if those who couldn't cut it in ATC, but are still good enough DEI hires, get put in GTC, and the demographic audit is an umbrella Tower Personnel type category.

How would you like to be a member of our HR team? You can always attempt the course again at some future date.

Posted by: Besoeker 2025-05-16 11:30

#3 I wouldn't be surprised if those who couldn't cut it in ATC, but are still good enough DEI hires, get put in GTC, and the demographic audit is an umbrella Tower Personnel type category.

Or there's the hire who checks more boxes than a tic tac toe game, and xer is put on an important sounding station which is just a closed system computer which simulates something important, requiring input and the occasional alert,

"Captain, sensors indicate a shortage of blinker fluid in units 18 through 24 on runway 18, condition 8, which requires your notification and response."

"Very well Scarlet Shutterfly, transfer 4 mikes of fluid type B4 from units 25 and 27, enhance, and make notice if the temperature exceeds plus minus 2 degrees on the y axis. Fabulous work, you are a valuable member of this organization."

And everyone else is snickering like when Dad sends the 10 year old into the auto parts store for headlight lubricant.

Posted by: swksvolFF 2025-05-16 11:22

#2 Very high paying government jobs go unfilled for a reason. Unlike many civilian job recruitment standards, Air Traffic Control standards cannot be significantly lowered to permit the recruitment of DEI hires. Therefore, government mandated DEI hiring percentages cannot be achieved.

The consequence appears to be a nationwide shortage of Air Traffic Control personnel. Some things can simply not be faked. Successful completion of the challenging Air Traffic Control school appears to be one of them.

Posted by: Besoeker 2025-05-16 05:37

#1 Not uncommon when a network component is ingesting a trojan or random system patch and forced to restart.

Posted by: Skidmark 2025-05-15 16:26

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