Kate Kelly

Yeah, so I think the show has covered really well some of the issues bedeviling the United States airspace and air traffic control in particular. But in my opinion, Newark has become sort of this recent crucible for a combination of two pretty major strands fraying at the same time, both technology that we all collectively rely on to keep air travel safe and

Yeah, so I think the show has covered really well some of the issues bedeviling the United States airspace and air traffic control in particular. But in my opinion, Newark has become sort of this recent crucible for a combination of two pretty major strands fraying at the same time, both technology that we all collectively rely on to keep air travel safe and

and staffing issues so all of that is combining for probably the most public most nerve-wracking air travel disruption that we've seen in recent years it's all coming to a head at newark basically yes well let's start with the technology piece of it can you just explain what exactly is going wrong with the technology at newark

and staffing issues so all of that is combining for probably the most public most nerve-wracking air travel disruption that we've seen in recent years it's all coming to a head at newark basically yes well let's start with the technology piece of it can you just explain what exactly is going wrong with the technology at newark

Yeah, so start with the notion that system-wide, the FAA is working with pretty dated technology. Two lawmakers this week have referred to the fact that this Newark outage generated with a quote-unquote fried copper wire.

Yeah, so start with the notion that system-wide, the FAA is working with pretty dated technology. Two lawmakers this week have referred to the fact that this Newark outage generated with a quote-unquote fried copper wire.

I haven't been able to verify that with government officials, but it's been spoken of and written about and is probably a plausible metaphor, if not a real explanation, because you are dealing with copper wiring in a lot of these locations. Got it.

I haven't been able to verify that with government officials, but it's been spoken of and written about and is probably a plausible metaphor, if not a real explanation, because you are dealing with copper wiring in a lot of these locations. Got it.

That's right. The other problem with this aged system is that it's prone to hiccups and delays that can make it extremely difficult at times for air traffic controllers to keep up with what is happening. The air traffic information they're getting may not be real time or may be frozen or interrupted permanently. by glitches along the line. Just explain that.

That's right. The other problem with this aged system is that it's prone to hiccups and delays that can make it extremely difficult at times for air traffic controllers to keep up with what is happening. The air traffic information they're getting may not be real time or may be frozen or interrupted permanently. by glitches along the line. Just explain that.

So the way that air traffic control works at a lot of airports might actually be different than what you think it is. You might have an image of a bunch of people sitting in a tower at a place like Newark Airport with radar or maybe even with binoculars looking out the window and directing those flights in and out, watching them land and take off from the runway.

So the way that air traffic control works at a lot of airports might actually be different than what you think it is. You might have an image of a bunch of people sitting in a tower at a place like Newark Airport with radar or maybe even with binoculars looking out the window and directing those flights in and out, watching them land and take off from the runway.

That's actually not the full picture. You do have people sitting in a tower at the airport, but you also have a whole bunch of people sitting off-site in locations that might be dozens of miles away, watching that air traffic as well, and using radar scopes and two-way radio communications to guide those airplanes.

That's actually not the full picture. You do have people sitting in a tower at the airport, but you also have a whole bunch of people sitting off-site in locations that might be dozens of miles away, watching that air traffic as well, and using radar scopes and two-way radio communications to guide those airplanes.

When it comes to Newark, for a long time, decades, many of their air traffic controllers were working at a hub in Long Island, in a town called Westbury, New York. But last summer, the FAA decided to relocate a bunch of those people from Long Island to Philadelphia.

When it comes to Newark, for a long time, decades, many of their air traffic controllers were working at a hub in Long Island, in a town called Westbury, New York. But last summer, the FAA decided to relocate a bunch of those people from Long Island to Philadelphia.

And in order to safely relocate those people to Philadelphia and make sure that they had the technology to do their jobs there, the FAA did sort of a workaround for the data feeds that go from Newark Airport to Philadelphia.

And in order to safely relocate those people to Philadelphia and make sure that they had the technology to do their jobs there, the FAA did sort of a workaround for the data feeds that go from Newark Airport to Philadelphia.

So when you have planes in the air at Newark and you have flight plans and vectors, meaning the angles at which airplanes come into the airport, that all represents a whole lot of data. So the data that's generated from Newark Airport typically would be sent via copper wiring or broadband to the air traffic control hub. Right.

So when you have planes in the air at Newark and you have flight plans and vectors, meaning the angles at which airplanes come into the airport, that all represents a whole lot of data. So the data that's generated from Newark Airport typically would be sent via copper wiring or broadband to the air traffic control hub. Right.