Federal investigators have recovered the black boxes from the passenger jet that crashed into the Potomac River last week. These boxes -- actually orange in color to improve the likelihood they can be found in wreckage -- will help get to the truth behind the worst U.S. aviation disaster since 2001.
But federal officials are hiding the truth about where the next air disaster is likely to occur. This government coverup should outrage the traveling public.
Less than two months ago, the Senate held a hearing on "aging" air traffic control systems. The hearing, explained Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), was in response to an "alarming series of close calls" at airports, with commercial flights narrowly escaping collisions.
Federal investigators revealed that air traffic control facilities at more than a third of airports in the U.S. are obsolete and "unsustainable" because they are decades old and falling apart, and parts are no longer even available to repair them.
Seventeen of these airport air traffic control systems present the most urgent risk. One retired Federal Aviation Administration engineer called the situation "an accident waiting to happen." The public should know which airports have the worst systems. But the Government Accountability Office, which did the investigation, refuses to identify them. The GAO report called the information "sensitive" and named the airports A, B, C, etc.
Here is government at its worst. GAO investigators are paid by taxpayers, yet they're covering up for the FAA. The public be damned.
This ass-covering philosophy infects every part of government. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention covers up when a hospital has a lethal infection outbreak, referring to it as "hospital A." Never mind that patients would want to avoid the risk of going there.
At the December congressional hearing on air traffic control systems, not one of the senators questioning the GAO asked for the identities of the at-risk airports. They were OK with this coverup. What kind of a farce is this?
The GAO report shows that 13 of 17 obsolete systems are not slated to be modernized until 2030 or later, and there are no plans in the works to update the other four. The FAA, under former Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, was "slow to modernize," according to the GAO, and failed to even request the necessary funding. It wasn't a priority.
Lambasting the FAA's priorities under the Biden administration, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) -- who now chairs the Commerce Committee that will oversee airline safety -- said during the hearing, "I think the American people would have preferred the administration focus on modernizing the antiquated system over obsessing on gendered language," banning worlds like "airmen" and "cockpit."
Buttigieg also ignored the looming danger caused by inadequate staffing at the air traffic control towers. Whether inadequate staffing caused last week's crash will be determined, but it's putting travelers at future risk at many U.S. airports, especially in New York.
An FAA inspector general report cites findings from way back in 2016 that air traffic control towers were dangerously understaffed, and the agency needed to establish a reliable staffing schedule. But as of June 2023, the report says the FAA had "made minimal progress" and is "no closer to implementation than it was in 2018."
The worst, according to the report, is New York Terminal Radar Approach Control, which guides airplanes from between 40 to 100 miles from an airport until they are turned over to the air traffic controllers at LaGuardia Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport or others in the region.
To control this busy airspace, New York TRACON is at 54% of recommended staffing levels, the lowest of 26 critical facilities nationwide. New York TRACON has fewer than one-third the recommended level of supervisors and well above the recommended level of trainees serving as controllers. JFK and LaGuardia air traffic control towers did not stand out as having unsafe staffing levels. The risk is in approaching these airports.
Buttigieg admitted that air traffic control staffing in New York was "unacceptable" and vowed to boost hiring. But talk is cheap. The inspector general's report says FAA has made "limited efforts."
Now the 67 crash victims' families -- some actually standing on the river's edge, watching as the wreckage is dragged from the Potomac -- wait for answers.
But all of us should be demanding answers -- and action -- to remedy the dangerous condition of air traffic control at airports and future accidents waiting to happen.
No secrets. No coverups.
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