In a prerecorded Friday interview that was released on Sunday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on “Meet the Press” called for an overhaul of the nation’s air traffic control infrastructure, some of which includes parts that need to be purchased on “eBay.”
“I’m concerned about the whole airspace,” Duffy told NBC News’s Kristen Welker. “The equipment that we use, much of it we can’t buy parts for new. We have to go on eBay and buy parts if one part goes down. You’re dealing with old equipment.
“We’re dealing with copper wires, not fiber” optics, “not high-speed fiber” optics, Duffy added. “This is concerning. Is it safe? Yes. We have redundancies – multiple redundancies in place to keep you safe when you fly, but we should also recognize, we’re seeing stress on an old network, and it’s time to fix it.”
In late February, Elon Musk, while working in his capacity as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency commission, also called for an overhaul of the nation’s air traffic control grid.
Musk posted to X that “the ancient” air traffic control “system that is rapidly declining in capability was made [by] L3Harris.
“The FAA assessment is single digit months to catastrophic failure, putting air traveler safety at serious risk,” he added. “The Starlink terminals are being sent at NO COST to the taxpayer on an emergency basis to restore air traffic control connectivity. The situation is extremely dire.”
Musk went on to note that a $2.4 billion contract from Verizon to upgrade the Federal Aviation Administration’s equipment “is not yet operational.” Shortly after Musk’s post, The Washington Post, pulling from two anonymous sources, reported that the agency was on the cusp of canceling its Verizon contract and giving it to SpaceX.
Duffy’s interview follows multiple reports on Sunday of issues with air traffic control towers.
Local New Jersey station ABC 7 reported that Newark Liberty International Airport was experiencing equipment issues with its radio communication. Less than a week ago, another report mentioned that air traffic control out of Newark lost contact with pilots on at least two other occasions since August.
On Wednesday, the New York Post reported on a former FAA official and several airline industry insiders telling the publication that air traffic controllers are facing around a thousand equipment failures a week, with more expected without a serious “overhaul” of the systems.
Duffy went on to tell Welker that “what you see in Newark will happen in other places across the country.”
“It has to be fixed, and what we’re having is some telecom issues, and we’re having glitches in the software. As the information comes in, it’s overloading some of the lines, and the system goes down. I’ll tell you specifically in Newark, we believe we’ll have it up and running in short order. We’ll be able to fix that glitch, and we feel a little more comfortable about our primary line that gets the data in on radar, and our redundant line is working, as well.”
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