PRIVATE CONTRACTOR TRANSITIONS CAUSE RADAR OUTAGES
- Details
- Published: July 18, 2013
O’Hare Incident Highlights Most Recent Problem With FTI
WASHINGTON, DC - Following a radar outage earlier this week at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS) today expressed serious concern about the transition from MCI to Harris Corporation’s Federal Telecommunications Infrastructure (FTI), which provides circuitry and communications for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
On Sunday, October 30, a radar outage occurred at O’Hare’s Terminal Radar Control Facility (TRACON) and lasted until Monday, October 31, causing flight delays of up to 40 minutes. The loss of radar operations occurred when Harris Corporation subcontractors attempted to transition phone circuits that carry radar data from their current circuits to FTI. The circuits failed and there was no backup on the circuits since the FAA dispensed of that requirement in order to speed up FTI site acceptance. This is not the first time such failures have occurred at O’Hare, and technicians state that the transition from MCI to Harris has been rocky at best since it began in July.
“This is a direct result of the FAA being more concerned with declaring success rather than achieving it,” said Tom Brantley, PASS national president. “Pretending things are okay can’t continue when it impacts the safety and capacity of the national airspace system.”
Similar problems have been reported in Boston, Atlanta, Miami, Los Angeles, Kansas City, New York and several other locations. From the outset, the implementation of FTI has been plagued with problems, including escalating costs, insufficient training of contractors, poor planning and management, and substandard service. In fact, due to the FTI implementation problems, many facilities around the country either are refusing to make the transition from MCI or are relieved to have the MCI services to fall back on when there are problems with FTI.
“These communications systems are vital in aviation and their reliability is absolutely essential to safe air travel,” Brantley declared. “Contractors and the FAA must ensure that the transition to FTI is seamless. Contracting out work to a corporation that is not up to the task illustrates the FAA’s utter disregard for aviation safety. It is only due to the perseverance of FAA technicians that delays in Chicago were not longer.”
As a result of the many problems during FTI implementation, the Department of Transportation Inspector General (IG) announced in April an audit of the program. “PASS calls on the FAA administrator to stop this disastrous transition until the IG issues its recommendations and the program can be reevaluated,” said Brantley.
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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.