Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Reports of at about a ninety second out ititch in
Denver air traffic control communications surfacing that took place on
Monday as controllers had to rely on backup frequencies in
order to communicate with the planes. Joining us now in
the KWA Common Spirit Health Studio with the latest is kwa's.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Aviation expert Steve Cowle. Steve, thank you so much for
joining me again this morning.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Okay, so walk us through this because it's a little
confusion of how this works, who's communicating with who, and
what we know here. We do know that this was
controllers at Longmont, but there's multiple controllers communicating to figure
this out. So explain the situation of what we saw.
Because a lot of people were saying loss of communication
at DIA. That's not the case, but it is people
(00:39):
that help with those DIA flights.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
That's correct.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
So the Longmont Center manages about two hundred and eighty
five thousand square miles of airspace if you draw a
circle all the way around from New Mexico all the
way around to South Dakota and so forth. There are
two types of controllers out of Logmont High Center people,
Low center people. People manages the airplane. When you start
(01:02):
getting down to the lower altitudes, and let's say you're
coming from the northwest, Really, when you hit or just
before you begin your descent where you're going to go,
comme into the Denver airspace above Estes Park. Those are
the low center people. They're feeding the DIA tracon, which
is the approach controllers. Now the high center people are
(01:24):
keeping the airplanes at altitudes separate. We don't know which
center couldn't communicate one.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
More critical than the other. Obviously all communications very critical.
But would you say one could be a more scary
situation than.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
The other, Well, neither one is really scary.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
The airplanes are separated by about twenty miles and different altitudes. Now,
airplanes at altitude are going approximately seven and a half
to eight miles per minute, so they're separated really by
about two minutes of time. And what the controllers lost
was about twenty miles of air space that they couldn't see. However,
(02:02):
every airplane flying in the centers has a transponder that
is showing up on radar that they never lost visual
with those transponders, so they were able to see. Second
point is this, every commercial airplane has at least two radios.
One of those radios is always on the emergency frequency,
(02:26):
which is one twenty one point five megahertz.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
That said, they're monitoring that.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
That's how the controllers were able to get through to
those airplanes because that emergency frequency is always open.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
How is this.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Situation similar or different than what we saw at Newark?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, Newark was a different story.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Newark was the actual tracon, the approach controllers, and those
people are really funneling the airplanes into the airport itself,
So they're dealing with a lot more airplanes and a
lot tighter airsplace. Plus you have multiple airplanes or multiple
airports around that airspace, everything from Philadelphia to the two
(03:08):
New York airports to New Jersey, so a lot tighter.
These airplanes are spread out much wider spacing.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
In the Denver situation. Is aging equipment to blame.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Aging equipment is to blame all over the place. This
has been going on for many, many years. You know,
you can't politicize this. The FAA has really been getting
limited fundings to improve the infrastructure, and quite frankly, some
of the technicians were let.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Go with recent cutbacks.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Okay, so I asked you this question when we had
you in last time talking about the new work issues.
Now it's hitting closer to home obviously, and I'm asking
it a personal question because I'm flying today.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Should I be concerned?
Speaker 3 (03:54):
No, you shouldn't, because what happens when controllers lose communication,
they just slow the system down, so they put more
spacing between the air airplanes. And that's really what's going
on at Newark, and that's what will be happening here.
There's another method of communication that I also should point out.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
There's a data link.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Every commercial airplane today really has a flight management computer.
They can actually receive written messages like a text message
from an air traffic controller that was never interrupted.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
So there's two real main.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Methods of communicating with airplanes in flight. When you lose
your primary method of communication, so they'll just spread everything
out a little bit further.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
And when you talk about these methods of communication, pilots
are well aware of them. They're very well equipped in
a situation like this. There's no panic scenario of what
happens when they have these outages.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
No panic situation at all.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
And as a matter of fact, to supplement these communication methods,
there are rules to go by that. If you you
don't receive a clearance by a certain point, it is
mandatory to enter a holding pattern for instance. So the
system has built in protections along the way, multiple protections,
I might add.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Steve, real quick and wrapping up with you, we learned
about the Denver situation maybe a couple days ago when
it did take place with an outage on Monday. Why
do you think there was such a delay in just
the news of this happening.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Well, first of all, it's an embarrassing public relations situation
for the FAA. They're under a lot of pressure now
Congress if they pass to build today specifically for the FAA,
and they threw billions at the FAA, this is still
going to take years to build out this new infrastructure.
(05:46):
This is not going to be a quick or easy fix.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Koways Aviation expert Steve Coyle, thank you as always, appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Thank you,
Reports of at about a ninety second out ititch in
Denver air traffic control communications surfacing that took place on
Monday as controllers had to rely on backup frequencies in
order to communicate with the planes. Joining us now in
the KWA Common Spirit Health Studio with the latest is kwa's.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Aviation expert Steve Cowle. Steve, thank you so much for
joining me again this morning.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Okay, so walk us through this because it's a little
confusion of how this works, who's communicating with who, and
what we know here. We do know that this was
controllers at Longmont, but there's multiple controllers communicating to figure
this out. So explain the situation of what we saw.
Because a lot of people were saying loss of communication
at DIA. That's not the case, but it is people
(00:39):
that help with those DIA flights.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
That's correct.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
So the Longmont Center manages about two hundred and eighty
five thousand square miles of airspace if you draw a
circle all the way around from New Mexico all the
way around to South Dakota and so forth. There are
two types of controllers out of Logmont High Center people,
Low center people. People manages the airplane. When you start
(01:02):
getting down to the lower altitudes, and let's say you're
coming from the northwest, Really, when you hit or just
before you begin your descent where you're going to go,
comme into the Denver airspace above Estes Park. Those are
the low center people. They're feeding the DIA tracon, which
is the approach controllers. Now the high center people are
(01:24):
keeping the airplanes at altitudes separate. We don't know which
center couldn't communicate one.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
More critical than the other. Obviously all communications very critical.
But would you say one could be a more scary
situation than.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
The other, Well, neither one is really scary.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
The airplanes are separated by about twenty miles and different altitudes. Now,
airplanes at altitude are going approximately seven and a half
to eight miles per minute, so they're separated really by
about two minutes of time. And what the controllers lost
was about twenty miles of air space that they couldn't see. However,
(02:02):
every airplane flying in the centers has a transponder that
is showing up on radar that they never lost visual
with those transponders, so they were able to see. Second
point is this, every commercial airplane has at least two radios.
One of those radios is always on the emergency frequency,
(02:26):
which is one twenty one point five megahertz.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
That said, they're monitoring that.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
That's how the controllers were able to get through to
those airplanes because that emergency frequency is always open.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
How is this.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Situation similar or different than what we saw at Newark?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, Newark was a different story.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Newark was the actual tracon, the approach controllers, and those
people are really funneling the airplanes into the airport itself,
So they're dealing with a lot more airplanes and a
lot tighter airsplace. Plus you have multiple airplanes or multiple
airports around that airspace, everything from Philadelphia to the two
(03:08):
New York airports to New Jersey, so a lot tighter.
These airplanes are spread out much wider spacing.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
In the Denver situation. Is aging equipment to blame.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Aging equipment is to blame all over the place. This
has been going on for many, many years. You know,
you can't politicize this. The FAA has really been getting
limited fundings to improve the infrastructure, and quite frankly, some
of the technicians were let.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Go with recent cutbacks.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Okay, so I asked you this question when we had
you in last time talking about the new work issues.
Now it's hitting closer to home obviously, and I'm asking
it a personal question because I'm flying today.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Should I be concerned?
Speaker 3 (03:54):
No, you shouldn't, because what happens when controllers lose communication,
they just slow the system down, so they put more
spacing between the air airplanes. And that's really what's going
on at Newark, and that's what will be happening here.
There's another method of communication that I also should point out.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
There's a data link.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Every commercial airplane today really has a flight management computer.
They can actually receive written messages like a text message
from an air traffic controller that was never interrupted.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
So there's two real main.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Methods of communicating with airplanes in flight. When you lose
your primary method of communication, so they'll just spread everything
out a little bit further.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
And when you talk about these methods of communication, pilots
are well aware of them. They're very well equipped in
a situation like this. There's no panic scenario of what
happens when they have these outages.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
No panic situation at all.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
And as a matter of fact, to supplement these communication methods,
there are rules to go by that. If you you
don't receive a clearance by a certain point, it is
mandatory to enter a holding pattern for instance. So the
system has built in protections along the way, multiple protections,
I might add.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Steve, real quick and wrapping up with you, we learned
about the Denver situation maybe a couple days ago when
it did take place with an outage on Monday. Why
do you think there was such a delay in just
the news of this happening.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Well, first of all, it's an embarrassing public relations situation
for the FAA. They're under a lot of pressure now
Congress if they pass to build today specifically for the FAA,
and they threw billions at the FAA, this is still
going to take years to build out this new infrastructure.
(05:46):
This is not going to be a quick or easy fix.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Koways Aviation expert Steve Coyle, thank you as always, appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Thank you,
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