Extreme Commanders

Plane passenger sparks emergency landing after convincing himself SNAKES were slithering on easyJet flight from Gatwick

A PASSENGER “went berserk” at 30,000ft and sparked an emergency landing convinced there were snakes running loose on his easyJet plane.

He was wearing a t-shirt with a snake pattern on it, and suddenly feared the reptiles were slithering around the cabin.

A PASSENGER “went berserk” at 30,000ft and sparked an emergency landing convinced there were snakes running loose on his easyJet plane.

He was wearing a t-shirt with a snake pattern on it, and suddenly feared the reptiles were slithering around the cabin.

“No-one quite knew what was going on, or initially if the flyer had actually seen a snake loose among the cabin at 30,000ft.

“But it soon became apparent that the flyer was either so drunk or on illegal drugs and he was imagining things.

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Gridlock, massive flight delays at one of the busiest U.S. airports’

MSNBC's Tom Costello claimed Friday that an air traffic controller who works at Newark airport said, ‘It is not safe. It is not a safe situation right now for the flying public. Don't fly into Newark. Avoid Newark at all costs.’

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Meanwhile...

United to cancel 35 roundtrip flights a day at EWR after ongoing FAA equipment, staffing issues: CEO

Following a week of delays and cancellations at Newark Liberty International Airport due to FAA equipment issues and staffing shortages, the CEO of United Airlines said the company has no choice but to unilaterally cancel flights from its schedule.

Starting this weekend, United will cancel 35 roundtrip flights per day from its Newark schedule, United CEO Scott Kirby said in a letter to customers.

Three times this week, flights through Newark faced significant delays for a combination of issues, compounded by ongoing runway construction at the airport.

The FAA has experienced equipment issues at its Philadelphia TRACON center, which helps manages the airspace around Newark Liberty, causing delays for passengers. The FAA said it has also had air controller staffing shortages.

"Unfortunately, the technology issues were compounded as over 20% of the FAA controllers for EWR walked off the job. Keep in mind, this particular air traffic control facility has been chronically understaffed for years and without these controllers, it’s now clear – and the FAA tells us – that Newark airport cannot handle the number of planes that are scheduled to operate there in the weeks and months ahead," Kirby said in his letter.

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Still having issues in Newark:

Radar screens at Newark airport went black again overnight

Radar screens at New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport went black again early Friday morning.

The outage happened at 3:55 a.m. and lasted about 90 seconds, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

Air traffic controllers could be heard telling a FedEx plane that their screens went dark and then asking the aircraft to tell their company to put pressure on to get the problem fixed.

In another transmission, a controller told an arriving private jet that the airport just had a brief radar outage and to stay at or above 3,000 feet in case the controllers couldn't get in touch during the aircraft's descent.

The FAA called it a "telecommunications outage that impacted communications and radar display at Philadelphia TRACON Area C," which is the facility that covers the airspace around Newark.

Last week, an outage at Newark caused ATC computer screens to go dark for roughly 60 to 90 seconds and prevented controllers from talking to aircraft during that time, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the incident. As a result, the FAA briefly halted all departures to the airport.

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Airport Chaos

It has been a scary few months for air travel.

Faltering technology in the air traffic control hub that watches over Newark Liberty International Airport has caused the radar system to fail at least twice in recent weeks. Airplanes have bumped wings in San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

And a number of commercial flights have aborted landings at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport so far this month. On one occasion, it was because an Army helicopter was flying nearby — just months after a plane and a helicopter collided in the same airspace, killing 67 people.

The Federal Aviation Administration’s air traffic employees watch over nearly three million passengers and more than 45,000 flights per day. But the technology they rely on is in some cases wildly outdated. And it’s tough to find people who can operate it.

In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain how we got here.

Glitchy systems
Air traffic controllers rely on two essential things: radar screens, which provide a visual representation of what’s going on in the air, and radio communications, which allow them to talk with pilots.

In certain cases, copper wiring, first developed in the 19th century, is used to transmit data from one place to another. Some systems still rely on floppy disks and compact discs. Flight records are occasionally printed out on slips of paper rather than relayed electronically.

The result is a hodgepodge network of software, parts and wires. Sometimes it works seamlessly; other times a single clipped wire takes out a controller’s radar entirely, leaving pilots with no means to be seen by the people who are supposed to be keeping them out of harm’s way.

Officials said that archaic technology was to blame for the recent outages at Newark. On April 28, some of Newark’s controllers lost both radar and radio.

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Newark seems like a ticking timebomb:

Newark airport had three air traffic controllers on duty instead of 14

New Jersey’s Newark Liberty airport, one of three major airports serving New York City, had just three air traffic controllers on duty on Monday, which was well short of the 14 called for and forced air regulators to delay arriving flights for up to seven hours.

The air traffic controller shortfall, first reported by the New York Times, comes amid a growing number of problems for the hub. In a little more than a week, Newark has suffered three communications blackouts, rendering the control tower unable to track or communicate with planes for up to 90 seconds.

The most recent failure, on Sunday morning, came as government and airline officials have made multiple efforts to reassure airline passengers that flying into or out of the airport is safe.

But on Monday evening, during the 3pm to 10pm shift, the group that manages Newark air traffic from Philadelphia was operating with one or two fully certified controllers, the outlet reported – far fewer than the 14 controllers agreed on between the controllers union and air traffic control regulators.

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National Airport, Pentagon hotline had been disconnected for three years

A hotline connecting air traffic controllers at Reagan National Airport and their counterparts at the Pentagon has been “inoperable” since March 2022, a Federal Aviation Administration official confirmed Wednesday, further evidence of poor safety coordination between federal agencies responsible for the airspace where a midair collision in January killed 67 people.

The line is maintained by the Defense Department, and the aviation agency was not aware of the outage during the three years it was down, Franklin McIntosh, the FAA’s deputy head of air traffic control, testified at a Senate hearing Wednesday. Aviation officials discovered the hotline wasn’t working after May 1, when controllers at National ordered two passenger jets to abandon landings because an Army helicopter was circling nearby at the Pentagon.
“We’re insisting on that line to be fixed before we resume any operations out of the Pentagon,” McIntosh said.

Ongoing disputes over how to ensure safety have led to unusual finger-pointing among Cabinet departments. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy has accused the military of violating safety protocols, while military officials have insisted they have followed the FAA’s restrictions.

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And now it's not just Newark:

Second major airport hit with outage as ‘20 pilots unable to reach air traffic control for 6 mins while trying to land’

Up to 20 pilots were en route to Denver airport when they found themselves unable to contact air traffic controllers on Monday, reported Denver-based ABC affiliate KMGH.

Multiple sources told the news outlet the outage around 2 pm left "between 15 and 20 aircraft unable to communicate with air traffic control during a critical time."

The communication failure was due to multiple radio transmitter outages while they were descending, according to the sources.

The FAA confirmed the outage at the airport but insisted it lasted 90 seconds as two transmitters went down.

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Wow that's hard to believe in Denver...almost feels like sabotage.

Jacksonville Airport is on fucking fire.

The parking garage is engulfed in flames and sources are pointing at a Tesla explosion as the ignition point.

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Republicans look to abolish 'bloated' TSA and replace airports with private security


Two Republican lawmakers have introduced a measure that would abolish the Transportation Security Administration and replace it with a private security force. According to Republican senators Mike Lee of Utah and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, the TSA has intruded into the privacy and personal space" of Americans.

In a statement to Fox News, Lee proclaimed that the government agency has "repeatedly failed tests to find weapons and explosives." The statement read, "The TSA has not only intruded into the privacy and personal space of most Americans, it has also repeatedly failed tests to find weapons and explosives."

"Our bill privatizes security functions at American airports under the eye of an Office of Aviation Security Oversight, bringing this bureaucratic behemoth to a welcome end," it continued. "American families can travel safely without feeling the hands of an army of federal employees."

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