The FAA confirmed that yet another system outage occurred at the facility that handles flights in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport. And uh, why not? That's where we begin our terror in the skies flights zero Nier. You're alert, day off, Roger, get off my plane, Roderick Rodgers? What's our victor? Victor? Enough is enough? I have a hand. Put these multi fighting snakes on this money. It's Gary
and Shannon's Terror in the Skies O k FO. So the FAA is investigating a brief radio system outage at the Philly Air Traffic Control Center that is responsible for handling flights at Newark International Newark Liberty International Airport there in New Jersey. This is not good. It doesn't get much better when I play the sound for you. Sorry about that. I thought United had cleared well before that for a moment and I get at the other United. Luis will get you up, went man. Why does he
have to get the other United out of the way? Oh? I don't know. Because the radio went out the radar frequency again, Okay. The FAA said the control tower lost radio frequencies for two seconds yesterday morning at about eleven thirty, New Jersey time. Despite that everything remained safely separated. There
were no big deals. But this is the fourth time since April twenty eighth, the fourth time that there has been a system outage of some duration at the Philly Air Traffic Control Center that's responding for these responsible for these flights to come into Newark. After the April incident, there was a second outage on May ninth that interrupted communications for about ninety seconds. There were more flight disruptions. There was a third outage two days after that which
halted flights. Staffing shortages linked to the April incident led to widespread delays. They've been having construtroduction issues with that Newark airport that we've told you about many times. In the first couple of incidents, both April twenty eighth and in May ninth, they had really bad weather. It was very overcast and foggy in that area, so they had other natural delays that were going to occur. Sean Duffy
is the Secretary of Transportation. He said earlier this month that we are in the midst of upgrading our air traffic control system, but it is going to take some time. They include updating the system with new software, with new equipment, and he says that this revamp is going to cost
tens of billions of dollars. Right now, we know that the FAA system relies on technology that was outdated before I graduated from high school, and that in some cases the FAA has had to resort to buying equipment on eBay, replacement parts on eBay, or even making them on their own using three printers because some new components are unavailable for that same outdated equipment. Obviously, there are problems with
the shortage of air traffic controllers in the US. More than ninety percent of the nation's airport towers are considered to be inadequately staffed. They fall short of standards that were set by the working group from the FAA and the Controllers Union that put them together. So no word today on an outage near Newark, but not good because yet another one has prompted problems and delays and they
will continue at Newark for some time. Nearby up in that same area, there was a close call at LaGuardia Airport between two commercial jets, currently under investigation by the FAA and NTSP. This is one of many of the close calls, the go arounds, and the accidents that has prompted calls for changes to that aviation system, not just air traffic control, but the way the FAA op rates
on a very general basis. So this happened right about twelve thirty in the morning on May sixth, and air traffic controller canceled the takeoff clearance for American Eagle flight forty seven thirty six because a United flight was taxing on that same runway, so he had to yell. The controller had to yell brickyard forty seven thirty six. Stop Brickyard is the call sign they use for republic airways, and then rejected takeoff runway thirteen. Said the pilot, Sorry
about that. I thought United had cleared well before that, according to the controller. So the United flight that was coming in that evening from Houston carrying one hundred and seven passenger six crew members, the planes were about a quarter mile apart when the flight that was taking off hit the brakes, and the FAA said, it's also investigating another like I said, radio outage there at Newark. These close calls like this, yeah, they happen. One way I
heard it. To describe today is they need to stop calling them near misses because that makes it sound like they were separated. But if you called it, if you just changed the nomenclature, if all you did was say we had a near hit at LaGuardia, that it would have changed pretty significantly and in fact, would make people
think differently about how dire the situation is. When it comes to the tens of thousands of flights that operate throughout the United just the United States, the tens of thousands of flights that operate in the United States each and every day, how many of these close calls are there? I'm surprised there are not more. But again, some instances like this one. Today's the ninth, today's the twentieth, and
we're only finding out about it two weeks later. Unless you were the pilot or the air traffic controller, this stuff isn't advertised very often. So that's just a couple. On Saturday, a door dash driver made his way onto Chicago O'Hare International Airport grounds. Now I'm not talking about driving through the terminal, I mean through a restricted area, and they said may have accidentally driven over taxiways while trying to find his way back out of the airport.
Thirty six year old driver making a delivery. He accessed the airside areas how they referred to it, and you know who caught him or you know who noticed him. The air traffic controllers in the tower saw this unauthorized vehicle making its way through secured parts of the airport. They may have crossed multiple internal roads and potentially even taxiways before they were noticed by the air traffic controllers. Airport authority were able to intercept this guy. They questioned him.
He said he was completely there by mistake, no big deal, accidentally drove to within that secured area, no malicious intent, no charges, no citations anything. Door Dash also had to come out. They acknowledged the event. They're actively reviewing the details around exactly what happened. This is not the first
time that this has happened. Amazingly, you drive around Lax, you drive around Burbank, it's hard to find a place to get in that even looks like you could get in if you're unless you're going through the normal concourse in front of the airport. A former air traffic controller said that this was pretty frightening. This guy also flew business jets emphasized how dangerous it could have been, because
he says, imagine if this had been at night. Imagine if this was harder for air traffic controllers to identify that as an unauthorized vehicle. Yeah, you got headlines rolling around, but you got headlights for other vehicles that are traveling within that airside portion of the airport that are fine. Headlights all looked the same in the dark, he said, And it could have been really, really bad. Chicago's major
airports experienced several similar breaches. In April of last year, a city owned vehicle went on an active taxiway at O'Hare without prior clearance that prompted a near miss, if you want to call it that an incursion with a regional aircraft. That was one of at least three runway or taxiway access violations involving ground vehicles at O'Hare during
that year. Chicago Midway, there was just in February Chicago Midway there was a flex Jet Challenger three point fifty business jet that crossed an active runway without authorization and if you remember that, that forced a Southwest flight to abort its landing just a few seconds before a touchdown. But okay, let's send the terrans in the skies with a positive story. Shally, there's a one from Ohio who's had a chance encounter with a handsome pilot, if you will.
Tanya is her name, not even going to try her last name because it doesn't make sense. It's just a bunch of letters, she says. Every time I tell the story, people think I'm making it up. She's flying home with her family to Cleveland. She catches this guy checking her out while she's at the airport in Charlotte, North Carolina. Sees that this guy has a pilot's uniform on Hello, and that he's a head taller than everybody else. Hello. Hello.
She didn't think anything of it until she gets onto her flight Frontier and sees that this guy, Wesley, was on the same plane as he was in uniform. She initially thought, oh, that's our pilot, realized he was actually off duty. He's just deadheading to a different flight headed to Ohio. He gave Kanya's nephew a wave as she was carrying the kid down the aisle to her seat toward the back of the plane. She then didn't interact with him for the rest of the flight until they land.
When he approaches her with a note, she said, I'm sitting in a row towards the back. About twenty minutes before landing, I got a tap on my shoulder and it's that guy handing me a napkin. I made my mom and my sister read. At first, I was freaking out. This message read again, written on a napkin of a frontier airline's flight. Hi, I'm sure you get notes like this all the time, but I would love to take you out to dinner and get to know you. If that's something you'd be up for, let me know, and
then he dropped his digits. She later learned the pilot had never asked out anyone before, let alone somebody on a plane, and had to be hyped up by one of the flight attendants who helped him right on the napkin. She said. She next to the guy the next day and they have been together ever since. So you can find love in the air.