Internal FAA report downplayed risks of data outage affecting Newark air traffic controllers

Before the FAA moved air traffic controllers who oversee the Newark Liberty International Airport airspace to a new site in Philadelphia last year, the agency’s experts concluded the odds of a dangerous communications breakdown were extremely unlikely: 1 in 11 million, according to an internal report obtained by CNN. In reality, the safety concerns officials downplayed appear to have occurred multiple times since the new system went into place last summer, according to multiple controllers. Data outages – including a failure of about 90 seconds of radar and radio service last week – have repeatedly left controllers without the ability to see the locations of planes they were tracking. The problems led to several controllers taking trauma leave from work and sparked the massive flight delays and cancellations that have roiled Newark over the last week and a half. Yet a 2022 FAA report about the relocation concluded that despite the “major” severity of a potential data outage, there was only “medium” overall risk because the chance of it happening was “extremely remote.” Aviation experts told CNN that the conclusions in that report – as well as another report from 2024 that evaluated risks of air traffic controllers in two different locations struggling to coordinate – should raise questions about the agency’s safety analysis. Mary Schiavo, who served as inspector general of the Department of Transportation during the ’90s and reviewed the reports for CNN, said she thought the conclusion on the likelihood of the data feed failure was “outrageous and terrifying.” “There was the added risk because they were creating a Frankenstein patchwork” of multiple data systems, Schiavo said. While the report found that failures of the radar data transmission “would be a major hazard,” the reviewers appeared to be “downplaying it because they didn’t think it would happen,” she said. An FAA spokesperson did not respond to questions about the safety reviews but said in a statement that the agency “applies our standard safety risk management methodology when we implement new equipment, operations, and procedures; when we make changes to them; and when a safety issue is identified in the system.” A spokesperson for the air traffic controllers union, NATCA, which had several members participate in the safety review process, declined to comment. The “Safety Risk Management” reports were conducted as the FAA planned to relocate air traffic controllers overseeing planes headed to and from Newark. For decades, they had worked alongside other controllers who covered the approach to John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports from a facility on Long Island. But in response to staffing and training issues at that site, the FAA moved about two dozen controllers to a new facility in Philadelphia in July 2024. The 2022 study, which was conducted by a panel of 11 FAA experts and representatives from the union, evaluated the technological challenges of that move. According to the report, radar data on planes headed to and from Newark would be transmitted from the Long Island facility to the new location in Philadelphia via eight commercial telecommunications infrastructure lines. A FAA spokesperson did not respond to a question about whether all eight lines were actually installed and are currently active. In the 2022 study, panel members identified “loss of telecommunications lines” between Long Island and Philadelphia and the resulting “loss of automation services and surveillance support” as a potential hazard. They decided that an outage would have a “major” severity, as controllers “would have insufficient means to surveil aircraft” and be hindered in their “ability to continue to vector aircraft safely.” To determine the likelihood of such a loss in telecommunications, the panel members reviewed information about previous “full facility outages” at US airports. They concluded that from May 2018 to December 2021, there had only been one full outage at 35 major airports around the country – a failure lasting six minutes at JFK airport. As a result, they calculated that the likelihood of an outage in the Long Island to Philadelphia data lines was about 1 in 11 million – an “extremely remote” chance that allowed them to classify the risk of telecommunications lines being lost as “medium.” The report required the FAA also install additional hardware that could transmit radar data directly from Newark airport to the Philadelphia location, so it could still work even if there was an outage at the Long Island facility. With that change, the panel voted to downgrade the “residual risk” of the problem to “low.” The cause of the outages that Newark controllers have experienced over the past year has not been publicly confirmed by FAA officials. But aviation experts said that the issues flagged by controllers in recent months raised questions about the validity of the 2022 report’s conclusions. Timothy Johnson Sr., an assistant professor of aviation at Hampton University and a former air traffic controller and training manager for the US Air Force, said that the idea that there was only a remote chance of an outage seemed to be “out of step with operational reality.” “While it may reflect past outage data in a general sense, it doesn’t account for the complexity, volume, and interaction density” associated with the unique Long Island-to-Philadelphia system, he said. “Risk isn’t just about how often something happens, it’s also about how severe the consequences would be if it does … In my view, that probability estimate was used to justify inaction rather than drive preemptive safeguards.” Schiavo, the former DOT inspector general, agreed and argued the data analysis was conducted in a way to justify the “extremely remote” chance of an outage and “to put a number on something so they could ignore the risk.” Given how controllers losing radar service could potentially lead to a catastrophe, she said the panel should have weighed that possible hazard more heavily than the likelihood of it occurring. “They listed out all these things that could happen, including losing radar,” she said. “That’s exactly what happened.” A person familiar with the FAA’s safety risk management process told CNN that “it’s not uncommon to have a medium finding” on risk assessments, adding that it’s rare for reviews to conclude a hazard has a “high” risk. Typically, FAA works to mitigate the “medium” risks and moves forward, according to the person, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to comment. The report also says that some panel members questioned whether the “bandwidth” of the system that transfers data from Long Island to Philadelphia “would be robust enough to support the level of incoming data,” although they did not include that issue as a potential hazard because the system was designed to handle it. The FAA said in a statement Wednesday that to address issues at Newark, the agency planned to install three new high-bandwidth telecommunications connections between Long Island and Philadelphia to “provide more speed, reliability and redundancy,” and replace “copper telecommunications connections with updated fiberoptic technology that also have greater bandwidth and speed.” The 2022 report did not mention the use of copper or fiber technology. The 2024 safety report, which was finalized just days before the move took place in late July, covers the procedures for controllers in Long Island overseeing the approach to LaGuardia and JFK to work with the Newark approach controllers in Philadelphia. The report identified several potential hazards with the arrangement, including “reduction in situational awareness” and “operational personnel confusion/misunderstanding,” largely because controllers were used to working in the same room but would now have to communicate over landlines. “This relationship has historically relied on in-person/immediate communication,” the report stated, adding that some controllers were concerned “that efficiency would suffer should in-person interaction be removed, and the time delay may have an impact on safety.” The panel concluded that the risk would be reduced because there would be “shout lines” that allow controllers in the two locations to communicate with each other more quickly than through landline calls. The report states that “Tech Ops conducted four live tests to ensure that (Philadelphia) had sufficient communication with” the Long Island facility. The review concluded that the risks were “medium” level and could be partially mitigated by additional training of controllers. However, reports filed by several controllers in the weeks after the shift to Philadelphia show that some of the personnel confusion issues identified in the study apparently did happen. A half-dozen controllers filed confidential reports outlining problems with coordination between the two locations, CNN reported this week. The controllers’ union, NATCA, which opposed the move to Philadelphia, filed a letter of dissent on the 2024 report, arguing that the study hadn’t been thorough enough and that the FAA hadn’t provided the union enough time to review its plan. “The failures of the FAA and the rush to complete” the review did not allow the panel to effectively evaluate the change, the letter argued. The person familiar with the FAA’s safety risk management process confirmed that the 2022 and 2024 reports obtained by CNN were final versions. The agency also conducted two other safety reports on the Philadelphia move in 2021, related to airspace realignment and training waivers, which CNN has not reviewed. Schiavo said the potential dangers outlined in the reports help explain the nightmare scenario that unfolded last week when controllers lost radio and radar. “It’s terrifying what happened,” she said, “but when you read these documents, you understand that they created a mishmash of a system that really wasn’t tested (and) hadn’t been done this way before.”