As many as 20 pilots flying into the Denver International Airport on Monday afternoon were unable to speak with air traffic controllers for up to six minutes due to multiple radio transmitter outages, several sources have confirmed to Denver7 Investigates.
The frequency outage occurred at the Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center, which is in Longmont and, in part, ensures that aircraft have adequate spacing up in the sky as they approach their destination.
It is one of 22 such centers in the country and serves a large region in nine states: Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.
Watch our report in the video below, where Denver7 Investigates' Chief Investigator Tony Kovaleski spoke with a retired air traffic controller about the risks of incidents like this.
Multiple inside sources told Denver7 Investigates' Chief Investigator Tony Kovaleski that the outage occurred around 2 p.m., leaving between 15 and 20 aircraft unable to communicate with air traffic control during a critical time. A controller eventually was able to contact one pilot on what’s called a guard line — which is typically used when a pilot is in distress — and that pilot was able to contact the other aircraft to tell them to change frequencies.
One inside source said that four frequencies from the two main towers at the Longmont center were already out of service. Air traffic controllers were communicating with pilots on a backup fifth frequency, which then went out.
“The biggest risk is you have airplanes that you're not talking to. And then, therefore, the pilots have to try to figure it out themselves,” explained David Riley, a retired air traffic controller with 32 years of experience, including 15 years in Denver. “It says that the equipment is getting old.”
Riley is the former head of the local air traffic controllers union and spoke to multiple sources with first-hand knowledge of Monday’s situation.
“It's one thing to lose track of one airplane because you can't communicate with them, but to lose track of all of the airplanes that you had communication with,” Riley said. “And from my understanding, in this situation, they still had radar coverage, but that's like watching a car crash happen and not be able to do anything about it.”
Riley said that aging infrastructure and low staffing has been a consistent issue for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and he speculated that this incident could be a direct result of having old equipment.
“It's not acceptable. And the biggest problem is the fact that the FAA does not have stable funding to replace this equipment and maintain it in an appropriate fashion,” Riley said.
Air traffic control issues have been in the news recently, as it was reported earlier this week by the New York Times that the Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey only had three air traffic controllers on staff one evening when there should be 14 people working. An ongoing shortage of air traffic controllers led to major flight delays at the airport earlier this month, and just this week, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he is contemplating significant flight reductions at the Newark airport to help ease ongoing travel disruptions.
In a press conference last week, Duffy also addressed outdated infrastructure at airports.
“We should be using fiber, but it's copper. We use radar from the 1970s. Some of them are from the 80s, but most of them are from the 70s,” Duffy said. “So, this technology is 50 years old that our controllers used to scan the skies and keep airplanes separated from one another.”
- Air traffic operations at the Newark airport were briefly disrupted again Friday morning after a telecommunications outage affected a nearby control center. Watch our report on this below.
According to the Associated Press, the Transportation Department plans to ask Congress for billions of dollars for an overhaul of the country's air traffic control system, which would include replacing 618 radars, installing 4,600 new high-speed connections and upgrading all the computers controllers use. The exact price tag has not yet been determined.
The reason for the Monday outage in Longmont remains unknown.
Denver7 Investigates has reached out to the FAA for comment and is still awaiting a response.
Denver7 Investigates worked with COLab for portions of this report.
