By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Air traffic controllers overseeing planes at Newark International Airport in New Jersey lost contact with aircraft for 30 seconds last week, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Monday.
“The primary communication line went down, the backup line didn’t fire, and so for 30 seconds we lost contact with air traffic,” Duffy told Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”
“Now were planes going to crash? No. They have communication devices. … But it’s a sign that we have a frail system in place, and it has to be fixed.”
Duffy said he plans to unveil a plan on Thursday to seek billions of dollars from Congress to reform air traffic control infrastructure and staffing. He previously said he would ask for tens of billions in funding.
“We’re going to build a brand new air traffic control system, from new telecom to new radars to new infrastructure,” Duffy said.
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association said on Monday that air traffic controllers in Philadelphia responsible for coordinating planes in Newark, which serves the New York City area, temporarily lost radar contact and communications with the aircraft under their control on April 28.
Scott Kirby, the chief executive of United Airlines, the carrier which operates the most flights from Newark, on Friday said 20% of the FAA controllers for Newark had walked off the job.
But on Monday, the controllers’ union said the workers did not walk off the job but took absences under the Federal Employees Compensation Act, which provides for absences for injuries or on-the-job trauma.
The FAA said some controllers in Philadelphia who work Newark arrivals and departures “have taken time off to recover from the stress of multiple recent outages.”
Newark airport has also been undergoing runway construction this spring that has cut capacity, and the FAA has faced a persistent nationwide shortage of controllers.
United said Friday it was cancelling 35 more flights a day – or about 10% – at its Newark hub.
“We have to reduce the traffic, get all the airlines to participate, and then we can move forward and rebuild back to capacity,” Duffy said on Monday.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Sonali Paul and Leslie Adler)
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