The Newark Airport Crisis is About To Become Everyone's Problem (theverge.com)
- Reference: 0177786965
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/05/26/1952223/the-newark-airport-crisis-is-about-to-become-everyones-problem
- Source link: https://www.theverge.com/planes/673462/newark-airport-delay-air-traffic-control-tracon-radar
The Federal Aviation Administration created the problem by relocating Newark's air traffic control operations from [1]the understaffed N90 facility on Long Island to Philadelphia in 2024 . Only 17 of 33 controllers accepted the move despite $100,000 relocation bonuses, leaving operations short-staffed. Rather than build new STARS servers in Philadelphia, the FAA opted to send radar data over 130 miles of commercial copper telephone lines.
The remote feeds have experienced approximately 10 minutes of downtime over 10 months -- exceeding the agency's reliability standards and occurring 200 times more frequently than the FAA's internal analysis predicted. The agency simultaneously laid off over 100 maintenance technicians and telecommunications specialists in February, further straining an air traffic control system that suffers around 700 outages weekly nationwide while managing 16.8 million annual flights with 1990s-era technology.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/planes/673462/newark-airport-delay-air-traffic-control-tracon-radar
STARS servers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, I've only been a pilot for almost 20 years and I've never heard of "STARS servers".
N90 is an ARTCC and relocating that is something that has been done before, just not this incompetently. And no, it has nothing to do with copper, fiber, Elon interjecting his oversubscribed satelitte network, etc. It's poor design, lack of redundancy, and no testing.
It only matters that "so many people left" because Trump/DOGGIE let all the good ones (who could easily get other jobs) go.
The ARTCC network wasn't designed to have these kind of tsunamis. They handle gentle waves.
Please Congress, offer Trump and his cronies $100K to retire early. He can keep his massive grift (two cryptocoins, private use of the presidential seal and white house, and never-will-happen Qatari Air Force One.) Those guys have damage our infrastructure and EWR is just one example.
Re:STARS servers? (Score:4, Informative)
> Sorry, I've only been a pilot for almost 20 years and I've never heard of "STARS servers".
[1]https://www.oig.dot.gov/sites/... [dot.gov]
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://www.oig.dot.gov/sites/default/files/av1998012.pdf
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Terminal_Automation_Replacement_System
Re:STARS servers? (Score:4, Informative)
Who let the air traffic controllers go? TFS links to [1]https://www.natca.org/2024/07/... [natca.org], which says:
> The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) is dismayed the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has determined that effective July 28, 2024, it is requiring the relocation of 12 air traffic controllers [...].
I'm pretty sure that wasn't a Trump or DOGE decision, unless people were hiding who was running the federal government in 2024 much more than has been apparent.
[1] https://www.natca.org/2024/07/23/natcas-official-statement-on-mandatory-relocation-of-air-traffic-controllers-from-new-york-to-philadelphia/
Re: (Score:1)
The OP did not specify air-traffic controllers.
You should read this link from the article:
[1]https://theaircurrent.com/avia... [theaircurrent.com]
[1] https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/doge-layoffs-faa-safety-critical-roles-scrutiny/
Sure glad the Bell System was destroyed (Score:5, Interesting)
In the Old Days(tm), say 1990, electric power companies depended on Bell System wires for the most critical protective relaying applications, and the Bell Operating Companies provided nine 9s reliability with latency approaching the speed of light. Television networks likewise: national distribution in as close to atomic time synchronization as was humanly possible.
Today one is lucky to be able to make a voice call from one medium sized city to another without dropouts, jitter, disconnections, and other digital voice garbage. Latency? Ha ha ha ha. Reliability? Not even funny.
Progress!
Re: (Score:3)
OK, but do you really want to go back to paying the current equivalent $10 per minute for the privilege of using a piece of dedicated copper for a cross-country call?
BTW, "nine 9s" is one just second downtime out of 30 years continuous service. I was there back in the day of analog long distance, and I can assure you that reliability was nowhere near that. For example, if you tried to make a call on Mother's day after dinner, your chances of actually getting through were often less than 50%.
Getting a "fast
Re: (Score:2)
" I was there back in the day of analog long distance, and I can assure you that reliability was nowhere near that."
For your home landline?
Or for the dedicated line you were contracted directly with Bell with to provide point-to-point connectivity for critical communications infrastructure?
They weren't offering lots of 9's on your consumer land line, but that didn't mean they weren't offering it.
Re: (Score:2)
> point-to-point connectivity
I don't know why anyone would imply this level of service went away. If you want a direct link of fiber between two locations you can have it, you just have to pay for it. Meanwhile the base level of service has improved exponentially over the decades to where folks don't pay for those connections anymore even when they should.
Having however many nines you want in reliability is a business choice, not a technology one. In 1990 you just didn't happen to have as many ways to lower your cost's and get away w
Re: (Score:2)
> I can assure you that reliability was nowhere near that. For example, if you tried to make a call on Mother's day after dinner, your chances of actually getting through were often less than 50%.
Sounds like you're conflating capability and reliability. If you couldn't get through it was probably because the system was saturated with other calls, not because it was down.
Re: (Score:2)
The difference doesn't mean a rat's ass to the customer. Either way, no phone call.
Cause (Score:2)
> The Federal Aviation Administration created the problem by relocating Newark's air traffic control operations from the understaffed N90 facility on Long Island to Philadelphia in 2024.
That isn't what created the problem. The FAA is moving operations to Philadelphia because they can't get enough staff to work in Newark. Long Island is having the same staffing problems but Dick Durban blocked the FAA from moving those staff to Philadelphia. It's been an issue for decades.
Source: My cousin flies for United.
Re: (Score:2)
It did create the problem because "the FAA opted to send radar data over 130 miles of commercial copper telephone lines" as part of this move. A) it's not efficient and 2) it's not secure.
Re:No one wants to work anymore (Score:2)
If no one will work for the wages you offer, does the problem lie with you or everyone else?
Sabotage for privatization (Score:4, Interesting)
That's what this is. It's an old trick of oligarchs and billionaires, it's so old that when it was first invented we had millionaires instead of billionaires (or the upcoming trillionaires which we should have after the big beautiful bill passes).
What you do is you sabotage the basic functionality of the government and then you get the voters to blame the government for their problems.
Then you campaign on fixing those problems with less government which means you can take necessary public services that would normally be done by the government because they are necessary public services and you can privatize them skimming off the top of basic functions of human civilization.
Florida I understand has it real bad right now with a whole shitload of government agencies cut past the bone. It's at the point that basic stuff like inspections and basic functions of the Courts are starting to be impacted.
It's just one of many tricks used for a tiny population of about 2,000 people to control a population of 350 million and steal their property and money.
I wish we would spend more time teaching about this crap in schools, hell anytime. But of course if you tried to those 2,000 people in charge would make damn sure you couldn't.
I mean it's not like the king let you teach people about democracies benefits right?
Re: (Score:1)
Still better than being in Gaza or Ukraine at the moment, or being deported, voluntarily or otherwise. Might be time to move on out from the US of A. But then why can't they lay new cable? Presumably the courts, or the unions, or who knows any more. I prefer to blame the system rather than oligarchs or billionaires, just glad I'm not in the states anymore.
We're coming for you (Score:2)
The United States has the largest military on earth, we're insane so we don't fear nuclear weapons, and like all failing empires we will need military expansion to stay afloat as the morons we put in charge run our country's economy into the ground.
You can run, and you might die of old age before our collapse spreads far enough that you can't anymore. But if you're under 60 that's probably not true.
What I don't get is why the rest of the world is letting Russia run roughshod over us. I don't think p
Re: (Score:2)
And when they try to privatize not only will everything be worse, but they'll lose their "government bad" excuse. Leaving them with "Biden bad".
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder when these greedy bastards are going to realize that one of the steadiest trends in industrial civilization is that fewer and fewer individuals can inflict higher and higher casualties, when they choose to go on the warpath. It only takes one little security breakdown to make a yacht or manor house or private airplane vulnerable to some kind of drone with a nasty payload.
looks almost deliberate (Score:1)
it's almost like someone who is responsible for maintaining the system has instead just been robbing it for their own personal gain, like a capitalist dirtbag thief might do, just take take taking, offering nothing at all of value. quite a lot like dog shit might. but no, go ahead, masturbate yourself about how good capitalism is like a typical slashtard. fuckin virgins
Why not deploy more servers? (Score:2)
Why not deploy more servers? I understand the system is understaffed, so ignoring that, is there a reason they can't deploy more servers with failover?
Break it, and the fix it? (Score:2)
> managing 16.8 million annual flights with 1990s-era technology.
That is the time when Elon Musk steps in to sell us some stuff to fix the problem.
Re: (Score:2)
If somebody told me that was the plan all along, I wouldn't exactly faint from shock.
Everyone's? (Score:2)
You mean "everyone in one particular country", surely?
Trump crashes the economy and planes (Score:5, Interesting)
What a stable genius!
Re: Trump crashes the economy and planes (Score:3)
He took over the role of screen legend Lloyd picked-the-wrong-day-to-quit-smoking-crack Bridges
Re: (Score:3)
ATC was screwed up decades before Trump. It's running on antiquated equipment.
Re:Trump crashes the economy and planes (Score:4, Insightful)
> ATC was screwed up decades before Trump. It's running on antiquated equipment.
So laying off 100 of the maintenance technicians and telecommunications specialists that kept it running was a genius idea, you say?
Re: (Score:2)
Bullshit. This is a budget and management problem, not the operators and techs. You think they could simply buy a new system without suits being involved?
Weird coincidence (Score:5, Informative)
...And Biden tried to fix it, and Republicans didn't let him.
But anyway, to your point, for some mysterious reason the antiquated system kept limping along until Stumpy and his Doge saboteurs took over.
Must be pure bad luck that massively fucking around with the agency happened at the same time, right?
Everything Trump touches turns to shit.
Re: (Score:2)
You're right. Trump didn't fix or try to fix anything.
Re: (Score:2)
> ATC was screwed up decades before Trump. It's running on antiquated equipment.
Worse, the Philly control centre is connected to Newark via antiquated copper comm lines instead of fibre. Hell of a way to run a major hub...
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting he's only been in office less than half a year, yet the issue has been going on far longer than that. Perhaps we should blame Biden?