Kate Kelly

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.

So rather than route that data straight from Newark to Philadelphia, the FAA, for whatever reason, decided we'll keep our feed from Newark to Long Island, and then we'll send it from Long Island to Philadelphia. In and of itself, with fast transmission in this day and age, that shouldn't be a problem. But technology experts tell me it has created latency issues like very slight delays.

So rather than route that data straight from Newark to Philadelphia, the FAA, for whatever reason, decided we'll keep our feed from Newark to Long Island, and then we'll send it from Long Island to Philadelphia. In and of itself, with fast transmission in this day and age, that shouldn't be a problem. But technology experts tell me it has created latency issues like very slight delays.

And it's also made that Philadelphia data feed vulnerable to other hiccups in the system.

And it's also made that Philadelphia data feed vulnerable to other hiccups in the system.

Yeah, that's right. And we saw a manifestation of that potential for failure last September 2nd. And what happened was that several of the radarscopes in the Philadelphia location where the newer controllers were working, froze up.

Yeah, that's right. And we saw a manifestation of that potential for failure last September 2nd. And what happened was that several of the radarscopes in the Philadelphia location where the newer controllers were working, froze up.

So there have been three outages that we know of, including the one that occurred last week. Wow. The first one I'll come back to in a second, because it's sort of a horse of a different color. But the one I was mentioning... And it resulted from the sort of pit stop idea that we were talking about. It essentially related to the fact that this data was traveling a little bit further.

So there have been three outages that we know of, including the one that occurred last week. Wow. The first one I'll come back to in a second, because it's sort of a horse of a different color. But the one I was mentioning... And it resulted from the sort of pit stop idea that we were talking about. It essentially related to the fact that this data was traveling a little bit further.

And the data stream that feeds into these Newark air traffic controller screens was affected by data issues at a different local airport that were sort of overstressing the system. And what was the third outage that you mentioned that you said was kind of different? So that one was a more significant disruption. It occurred last August 27th.

And the data stream that feeds into these Newark air traffic controller screens was affected by data issues at a different local airport that were sort of overstressing the system. And what was the third outage that you mentioned that you said was kind of different? So that one was a more significant disruption. It occurred last August 27th.