Latest news with #TimArel
Daily Mail
17-05-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Newark Airport officials were WARNED about faulty radar feeds as it's revealed displays also failed at LAX
For 90 terrifying seconds, air traffic controllers responsible for guiding aircraft into Newark Liberty International Airport could do nothing more than pray. A 'fried' piece of copper wiring momentarily wiped out their radar and radio feeds on May 9 - leaving planes flying blind into one of the world's busiest airports. FAA planners dismissed the doomsday scenario as an 'extremely remote' possibility when they relocated controllers to a new site in Philadelphia last year. But an internal report leaked to suggests senior officials had ample warning that the regulator's antiquated communications system was on the brink of collapse. The confidential document lists multiple occasions when a dozen or more tower displays failed in eerily similar circumstances across Southern California in 2022 and 2023. A national safety panel determined the culprit was congested ethernet cabling that couldn't cope with the volume of data traveling between radars and towers. Ominously, the report concluded that the danger wasn't unique to California because the FAA relies upon the same decades-old tech across the entire country. Officials insisted that they could mitigate the 'high risk hazard' by installing software patches and having staffers manually monitor the signal. The rudimentary fix was approved by Tim Arel, the outgoing head of the FAA's Air Traffic Organization. But it was deemed 'pathetic' this week by Rick Castaldo, a retired FAA engineer, who reviewed the internal report's findings for 'Monitoring a failure does not stop the failure,' Castaldo fumed. 'It's nearly the exact same issue that hit Newark. Those f**kers knew this was going to keep happening but they didn't do anything about it.' US aviation safety has been rocked by a slew of crashes and near misses in recent months, including January's deadly midair collision between a military helicopter and an American Airlines jet in Washington, DC. Telecoms outages at Newark on April 28 and May 9 – and a further 90-second blackout across a portion of Denver airspace on May 12 – have only added to the wave of public unease. But less attention was paid on June 16, 2022, when controllers at 11 towers including Los Angeles International, San Diego, Ontario, Palm Springs and Long Beach suddenly found themselves staring into blank monitors. Another 14 monitors went down simultaneously on December 26, plunging controllers at Van Nuys, El Monte, and several other small airports into a similar nightmare. 'While some towers are able to recover automatically, some have to be reconfigured online manually,' the report said, without revealing how long that takes. This leaked internal report suggests senior officials had ample warning that the regulator's antiquated communications system was on the brink of collapse The underlying problem, the document notes, involves a key FAA processing platform named STARS (Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System). The technology automates massive volumes of radar, weather and real-time aviation data for regional control centers known as TRACON (Terminal Radar Approach Control) sites which guide planes to and from airports. It's also fed via telecommunications cables to remote airport towers which lack their own direct access to radars. The problem, the panel explains, is that STARS was engineered by defense giant Raytheon in the 1990s to generate a continual signal compatible with analog wiring. It was never designed for modern ethernet connections which stream data in tiny digital fragments or 'packets'. Ethernet is faster and more efficient but the downside is that so many packets can flood the system at once that it congests the line and creates a 'traffic jam'. STARS responds to the hold-up by re-transmitting the same data again and again until a 'cascade event' overwhelms the bandwidth and blocks the feed to remote tower displays. From August 2023, staff were told to monitor signals across the Southern California TRACON network three times a day to keep an eye out for troublesome data spikes. They detected a further 42 signal issues but could do little to prevent 28 monitors going dead on March 3, 15 more on April 27, and a further three outages on November 14, affecting a total of 23 airports. In one instance workers tried to remedy a failing line at Hollywood Burbank Airport by manually disconnecting the network – akin to yanking an LAN cable from the back of a domestic router. 'The duration of the communication line failure lasted six days,' the report noted. The eventual fix was 'untimely and cumbersome'. It warned that similar hazards could be anticipated wherever the STARS software is operational, making it a nationwide safety risk. Castaldo told that Southern California was especially prone to outages because the vast distances between radars and towers there create greater vulnerabilities. For that same reason, he wasn't surprised to see similar issues afflicting Newark, a major hub for the New York City area and the nation's 13th busiest airport. FAA chiefs transferred control of Newark's airspace to the Philadelphia TRACON in July 2024 to address chronic controller shortages in its former New York base and reduce congestion in the Northeast corridor. However, the New Jersey airport's radio and radar feeds are still being processed in Long Island and fed south in what critics have likened to a 100-mile 'extension cord' made of copper wiring. According to CNN, a pre-move analysis downplayed concerns about a communications breakdown and rated the chances as one in 11 million. Officials insisted that they could mitigate the 'high risk hazard' by installing software patches and having staffers manually monitor the signal Castaldo, who worked at the FAA for more than two decades, said multiple backup systems should have been installed regardless. 'Every airplane on the planet has built-in redundancy for the 'oh s**t' moments that happen when you're flying. It costs a fortune but that's why these machines are so reliable,' he said. 'It's inexcusable that they didn't apply that principle.' In a Tuesday press conference Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blasted the Biden administration for pushing ahead with the Newark move 'without properly hardening the telecom lines feeding the data'. 'Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden did nothing to fix this system that they knew was broken,' Duffy fumed, blaming his predecessor at the Department of Transportation. 'Without addressing the underlying infrastructure, they added more risk to the system.' Duffy has promised three new telecommunications lines between New York and Philadelphia as well as a three-year modernization program replacing aging radars and copper wiring with the latest fiber, wireless and satellite technology. FAA insiders fear he's been set up to fail. 'Secretary Duffy is apparently listening to the same FAA people who have gotten us into this mess,' a senior official told 'Integrating a new system while maintaining 24/7 operational efficiency is like changing a flat tire on a car going 70mph on the freeway. 'It will not be an overnight or a three to five-year solution.' It was revealed last month that Arel, an FAA veteran of the past four decades, will soon be stepping down after accepting President Trump's federal 'buyout' plan. However, many of the senior officials named in confidential report remain in key FAA positions. 'Duffy is a smart guy but he's up against an entrenched bureaucracy that has no clue how to fix this problem. They need a fresh team in there,' Castaldo said. 'The last outage was at 4am. Thank God it didn't happen in bad weather in peak hours when there are 40 to 60 planes maneuvering at 200mph. 'I would have serious reservations about flying into Newark, period.'
CBS News
10-04-2025
- Business
- CBS News
FAA's head of air traffic retiring early as agency replaces senior managers at Reagan National Airport
Tim Arel, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration's Air Traffic Organization, will retire early as part of the second round of buyouts at the Department of Transportation. Arel, who has been working at the agency for four decades, had planned to retire at the end of 2025 but will now depart in the coming months to ensure a smooth transition, the FAA told CBS News in a statement. As the chief operation officer of the Air Traffic Organization, Arel is responsible for ensuring the safety of air traffic services for approximately 50,000 aircraft operating every day. But in the wake of the deadly midair collision in January , a series of concerning close calls and a fist fight in the tower between employees, the FAA brought in a new management team to the air traffic control tower at Reagan National Airport, CBS News has confirmed. Three senior managers were replaced as part of this move. "We brought in a new DCA management team to ensure strong support for the workforce," the FAA said in a statement. "Their priorities will include: reviewing safety data trends while preventing/correcting drift, performance management and ensuring facility training is robust and consistently meets national standards." Sources told CBS News the change in management is broadly part of a series of changes the FAA announced last week at Reagan National Airport . As part of its response to the Jan. 29 midair collision between an American Airlines flight and an Army Black Hawk helicopter that killed 67 people, the new measures included increasing the Operational Supervisor staffing from six to eight and increasing support for its air traffic controller team. The announcement also came days after a fight broke out between employees inside the air traffic control tower. Officers arrested 39-year-old Damon Gaines of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, according to Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority police. Gaines was not among the managers who were replaced, CBS News confirmed. In addition to serious safety concerns over the tower fight and the mid-air collision, two sources specifically mentioned the close call between a Delta Air Lines flight departing Reagan National and an Air Force jet at the end of March. Speaking at a Senate committee hearing last week on Boeing and air travel safety, Commerce, Science, and Transportation committee chair Sen. Ted Cruz criticized ATC over the incident. "The air traffic center that controls airspace around D.C. notified DCA about the flyover. That should have led to halted traffic," Cruz said. "This serious communication breakdown is just the latest in a string of missteps that signal the air traffic organization is under extreme stress." The FAA said it is investigating the incident.
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Yahoo
Air traffic chief retires early as FAA replaces senior managers at DCA
Tim Arel, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration's Air Traffic Organization, will retire early as part of the second round of buyouts at the Department of Transportation. Arel, who has been working at the agency for four decades, had planned to retire at the end of 2025 but will now depart in the coming months to ensure a smooth transition, the FAA told CBS News in a statement. As the chief operation officer of the Air Traffic Organization, Arel is responsible for ensuring the safety of air traffic services for approximately 50,000 aircraft operating every day. But in the wake of the deadly midair collision in January, a series of concerning close calls and a fist fight in the tower between employees, the FAA brought in a new management team to the air traffic control tower at Reagan National Airport, CBS News has confirmed. Three senior managers were replaced as part of this move. "We brought in a new DCA management team to ensure strong support for the workforce," the FAA said in a statement. "Their priorities will include: reviewing safety data trends while preventing/correcting drift, performance management and ensuring facility training is robust and consistently meets national standards." Last week, the FAA announced a series of changes for Reagan National Airport, including increasing the Operational Supervisor staffing from six to eight and increasing support for its air traffic controller team as part of its response to the Jan. 29 midair collision between an American Airlines flight and an Army Black Hawk helicopter that killed 67 people. The new safety measures came days after a fight broke out between employees inside the air traffic control tower. Officers arrested 39-year-old Damon Gaines of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, according to Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority police. Gaines was not among the managers who were replaced, CBS News confirmed. In addition to serious safety concerns over the tower fight and the mid-air collision, two sources specifically mentioned the close call between a Delta Air Lines flight departing Reagan National and an Air Force jet at the end of March. The FAA said it is investigating the incident. Supreme Court pauses order mandating return of Maryland man deported to El Salvador Watch: White House hit with several questions about tariffs at press briefing Trump administration fires top U.S. admiral at NATO
