Air traffic controllers at the Philadelphia TRACON managing Newark airspace reacted with disbelief and anger when radar and communications systems failed. Despite previous warnings about equipment reliability, controllers faced refusals to limit air traffic, which increased risks. Following several alarming outages, the FAA finally capped flights at 56 per hour, showing a shift in responsiveness to controller concerns. The ongoing challenges stem from overstretched staffing, equipment malfunctions, and high stress among air traffic controllers, raising critical questions about the state of the air traffic control system.
It was like disbelief. And then it was just like fury, honestly, like how could they have us working this, you know?
We had had other outages prior to that point that demonstrated to us that our equipment was unreliable.
We would ask them for less airplanes, and they would tell us no.
We're overstretched, we're understaffed, we're all stressed out. Our equipment doesn't work.
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