Latest news with #NewarkInternationalAirport
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Cory Booker Blames Both Trump and New Jersey for Newark Airport Chaos
Perhaps surprisingly, New Jersey senator Cory Booker isn't just blaming Donald Trump for the recent problems at Newark International Airport. During a recent interview on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!,' the politician pointed to both infrastructure failures and Trump for the much mocked airport. 'So you're telling me that it's not necessarily Trump's fault, this situation we have in Newark?' Kimmel asked the New Jersey politician. 'I'm telling you candidly, it's both,' Booker said. 'We have deferred infrastructure improvements that we should not have. But when Trump came in and DOGE and Elon Musk began firing key safety officials for the FAA, began laying off key personnel — one of the biggest issues right now is a personnel issue in addition to the technology issue.' Earlier this months, hundreds of flight cancelations and delays at Newark caused Democratic Minority Leader of the Senate Chuck Schumer to call for an investigation into the cause. It was eventually found that several compounding issues led to the widely mocked delays, including staffing shortages when it came to air traffic controllers, aging technology, the airport closing its busiest runways and bad weather. While on Kimmel's show, Booker also noted that the infrastructure for U.S. airports is the same technology that was used when his grandparents were alive. 'This is the president who said he was going to keep us safe by firing health officials, by firing FAA officials, by firing the people who inspect our food,' Booker continued. 'This man has patently made us less safe as a nation. And this is an example he contributed.' That was far from the only shot Booker took at Trump on Wednesday night. The senator also called the president 'the greatest grifter to ever be in the White House' and appeared shocked that Trump is 'doing it out in the open.' 'He has made billions of dollars since he's been in office by grifting off of that public position, and it's disgusting. There's very little accountability if Congress won't do what Congress was designed to do, which is to offer checks and balances to the presidency,' Booker said. Watch the full ABC interview above. The post Cory Booker Blames Both Trump and New Jersey for Newark Airport Chaos | Video appeared first on TheWrap.
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pentagon Air Traffic Control Glitch Caused Two Planes to Abort D.C. Landings
Newark International Airport isn't the only airport battling ancient equipment problems. A new report claims that the two commercial flights that were forced to abandon their landings near Washington, D.C., on May 1 were reacting to problems with military air traffic control. According to The New York Times, Pentagon air traffic controllers lost contact with an Army Black Hawk helicopter for 20 critical seconds on May 1—an incident emblematic of deeper dysfunction in U.S. military airspace under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The May 1 scare occurred as the Black Hawk rounded the Pentagon, prompting air traffic controllers to wave away a Delta Airbus and a Republic Airways Embraer due to uncertainty about the chopper's position. Army aviation head Gen. Matthew Braman revealed the details of the incident to the Associated Press. Braman said that the Comms blackout was caused by a poorly placed temporary antenna, which had only recently been moved to the Pentagon's roof. However, critics aren't buying it. A former NTSB crash investigator accused the Army of sidestepping responsibility. 'It just sounds like excuses,' he told the AP. The near-miss comes off the back of a deadly January midair collision involving an Army helicopter and a passenger jet that killed 67 people. In response, the FAA banned helicopters from the air corridor where the crash occurred, and paused flights into the Pentagon. Under Hegseth, a Trump loyalist and Fox News firebrand-turned-Defense Secretary, the Pentagon has been thrown into chaos. His administration has faced backlash over DEI rollbacks, religious favoritism, and the Signalgate leaks involving the sharing of sensitive military communications. Meanwhile, critical infrastructure like air traffic control has faltered, with outdated tech blamed for recent blackouts and travel disruptions at Newark Liberty International Airport. The issues have become so bad that the airport has registered a near 20 percent decline in arrivals and a 15 percent decline in departures. This year has seen a number of unrelated crashes, with an air ambulance going down in Philadelphia in January, killing six, and a commuter plane crashing in Alaska, killing 10. Despite these high-profile accidents, the number of air incidents overall is slightly below average. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is pushing for urgent modernization, but near-misses like this are increasing calls for accountability before further tragedies unfold.
The Journal
23-05-2025
- Politics
- The Journal
Donegal man being deported from Boston had been waiting three years for green card application
A DONEGAL MAN facing deportation from the US next week joined the waiting list for green card applications three years ago. The 40-year-old father of two American-born children, aged nine and ten, and owner of a small construction company near Boston, was recently arrested and taken to a detention center run by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after a driving-related conviction. He is now scheduled to be deported from Newark International Airport in New Jersey next week. John Foley, the man's Boston-based immigration attorney, said his client has lived in the US for over 15 years after overstaying a travel visa and is currently awaiting a decision on his legal residency petition with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Foley said he had pushed for his client's release under 24/7 monitoring with an ankle bracelet. 'They just said no,' Foley explained, adding that officials showed no hesitation in denying the request. He said there was 'no flexibility' from officials in their decision, noting that ICE officers had been more willing to compromise in previous years before the Trump administration. 'There's a whole new mentality among law enforcement and immigration officers under Trump 2.0,' Foley said. They're intent on instilling fear, and it's working – they're proud of it. I've never seen anything like this before; we're in a whole new era now. Advertisement Since January, the Trump administration has intensified immigration enforcement, carrying out widespread arrests at immigration courts across the US. Over 70,000 people have been detained and deported since Trump took office this year. Increased deportations have impacted many Irish nationals living in the US, sparking concern among communities and advocacy groups about family separations and legal rights. Foley explained that, in addition to being separated from his children, the Donegal man will have to let go of all his staff and sell his construction equipment. The man has now 'resigned himself' to returning to Ireland and being banned from the US – and his children – for ten years, the attorney said. 'I'm trying to avoid ICE sending him on a long, slow drive to Newark International Airport by showing his valid Irish passport and offering to pay for a flight out of Boston, but I haven't heard back from officials,' Foley added. He said fear of deportation is growing among Irish immigrants and other diasporas in the US. 'It's not just the Irish, it's everybody – I'm getting calls from people I represented 20 years ago who really have nothing to worry about, but they have prior criminal convictions, so they're stressed,' Foley said. He described Trump's immigration and deportation policies as 'un-American.' The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs said it 'stands ready to provide consular assistance' to the Donegal man being deported next week. Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
‘Matter of time before crash between planes,' U.S. air traffic controller says
An air traffic controller on duty during a 90-second communications blackout at Newark International Airport earlier this month says that if immediate changes aren't made in one of the busiest airports in the country, 'people will pay with their lives.' The 39-year-old New York native, a 16-year veteran controller in one of the most chaotic airspaces in the world, made the statements this week in an anonymously written article published in the British news outlet The Times. The incident happened just before 4 a.m. May 9 while she was the only controller serving the New Jersey airport and it's not even the first time. The same tower, which runs out of Philadelphia, experienced a communications outage on April 28 as well, and in both cases, the backup systems failed to immediately keep radar and communications with pilots online. During the May 9-minute-and-a-half blackout, she wrote that she could no longer see the dozens of planes that had just been dotting her radar seconds earlier, giving her no way to track the four commercial airline pilots she had just been guiding. 'Being at the control without any of our signals is like trying to dodge mines without a mine detector,' she said. Once the radar frequencies returned, she was able to recover contact with the planes, but no one knew if communications would suddenly go dark again. They did in fact go dark again, but not until May 11 and, fortunately, in that case, the backup systems worked immediately. Hordes of food delivery drivers wreaking havoc on L.A. neighborhood The 39-year-old controller was so shaken from the incident that she, like many of her colleagues at Newark, was put on stress-trauma leave, meaning there are now even fewer experienced controllers working the busy corridor. 'Do I think it's safe to fly from or to the airport? Let me put it like this: I deliberately avoid my own airport when booking flights, even if the alternatives are more expensive and less convenient,' she wrote. 'If Newark's air traffic control problems don't get fixed, I believe it's only a matter of time before we have a fatal crash between two planes.' In response to the outages, officials at the Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged that the 'system is outdated and showing its age.' They added that when equipment failures occur, the FAA makes sure to slow traffic down at the airport for greater safety. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
FAA, DOT laying out plans to ensure safety at Newark International Airport
NEWARK, N.J. (PIX11) — Newark International Airport experienced yet another day of cancellations and delays Monday, after experiencing another communications issue on Sunday. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Monday that an FAA software update pushed out Friday night allowed backup systems to kick in Sunday when a main communications line went down. More Local News This prevented a full radar blackout, as we previously saw on April 28 and May 9. This Sunday on 'Face the Nation,' United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said the airline is taking extra measures, in addition to its 35 daily flights already cancelled. On Wednesday, airline CEOs – including Kirby – will meet with the DOT for what is being called a 'delay reduction meeting.' 'What we've also done is put bigger airplanes on the route,' said Kirby. 'So put a larger plane, have fewer flights, but with bigger planes to maintain the number of seats that w Sec. Duffy said new fiber optic cable should be up and running to Newark's air traffic control by the end of the month, but still requires updated equipment to handle the faster speeds. More: Latest News from Around the Tri-State Duffy said bringing in additional air traffic controllers is also more challenging than it seems. 'It does take time to train up controllers from other areas,' said Duffy. 'So even if you have a 20-year experienced controller, they move to a new airspace, it takes them a long time to train up, so we don't have the ability to just snap our fingers and move controllers around.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
