US convenes Newark airport task force, fast-tracks telecom fix

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Reuters

May 13, 2025 1:35 AM EDT Updated 8 hours ago


WASHINGTON, May 12 (Reuters) - The Trump administration said on Monday it was convening an emergency task force and fast-tracking urgent steps to prevent additional telecom outages at the facility overseeing Newark air traffic after three incidents have shaken public confidence.

Acting Federal Aviation Administration head Chris Rocheleau said the agency was naming an emergency task force to help address telecom issues at the facility overseeing Newark Liberty Airport traffic that includes L3Harris Technologies (LHX.N), Verizon (VZ.N), and other technical experts. He pledged to be "transparent about the progress that we are making."

Officials said the FAA could experience other telecom failures. "We could see other situations like this around the country because the system is old," Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at a press conference. Duffy said he expects testing will be completed in two weeks after the FAA installed fiber lines to replace copper wire to boost resiliency at the air traffic control center in Philadelphia that handles Newark flights and a successful software patch. "We are going to fix Newark," Duffy said. "Our redundant lines are now working."

Duffy called the current system "a lemon" akin to a faulty used car and blamed former President Joe Biden and the prior transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, for not doing more to address telecom issues and not ensuring the reliability of telecommunications before it transferred control of Newark airspace to the Philadelphia facility last year. In response, a spokesperson for Buttigieg said: "Secretary Duffy has a tough job. But he needs to spend more time doing what the American people are paying him to do — fix problems — and less time blaming others."

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/faa-proposing-newark-flights-cuts-saying-unable-handle-current-volume-2025-05-12/

[bucolic_frolic]

1. This is so ludicrous when the solution is to get the government out of the way!

[twodogsbarking]

2. Call Pete.

[patphil]

3. Why do I get the feeling that this is all deliberate? Is this the work of Musk's DOGE boys?

Are we looking at planned outages to push the idea of an AI replacement?
We all know who would get the contract to "fix" the system.

[Initech]

4. Easy answer: Trump and Elon broke it with their stupid DOGE experiment!

[bluevoter4life]

6. ATC here

It is really easy to blame Trump and Musk for this, but the reality is this is a disaster decades in the making. I honestly believe it would have happened under Harris too.

The truth is, we have been operating within a system that is being held together by scotch tape and bubble gum. NATCA warned the FAA that something like this would happen if they moved this sector out of its original location. This move happened about a year ago and there were problems right from the beginning.

[twodogsbarking]

5. If you know BASIC here's your opportunity.