MORNING DELAYS AT PHILADELPHIA AIRPORT RESULT OF AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL EQUIPMENT OUTAGE

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Published: July 18, 2013

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Flight Delays Highlight FAA Training Shortcomings

PHILADELPHIA, PA - Inadequate training for FAA technicians trying to restart a critical piece of air traffic control equipment resulted in delays for air travelers this morning at Philadelphia International Airport.

The Standard Terminal Automation System (STARS) lost power early Thursday morning during routine maintenance on a power system. It takes three hours to restart STARS after it loses power, which extended into the morning rush and resulted in a number of delays at Philadelphia airport.

“Three hours is too long for a piece of equipment to be down that is critical to aviation safety,” said Mike Perrone, national vice president of Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS), the union that represents the FAA technicians who repair, maintain and certify STARS. “PASS pointed out this problem to the FAA while STARS was being developed, but the agency wouldn’t listen. There is a solution but the FAA has pushed back the date for the software release to an unknown date.”

Jill White – the FAA technician on duty last night, and a PASS member – also noted that the time it takes to restart STARS could have been cut down significantly if the FAA had provided the technicians at Philadelphia Airport with the right training.

“The FAA refuses to provide us with the training that could have cut the restart time by nearly two hours,” White said. “The delays this morning could have been avoided if we had that training and the software fix.”

“Public safety may not have been impacted this time, but the efficiency of air travel certainly was,” Perrone concluded. “The FAA’s refusal to train the technicians at Philadelphia Airport is definitely to blame.”

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PASS represents more than 11,000 employees of the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Defense who install, maintain, support and certify air traffic control and national defense equipment, inspect and oversee the commercial and general aviation industries, develop flight procedures and perform quality analyses of the aviation systems. For more information, visit the PASS website at www.passnational.org.