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Table of Contents
FAA
Created Friday 24 January 2020
See also: Aviation
Articles
Air-Traffic Control Is in the Midst of a Major Change
Posted by msmash on Friday January 24, 2020 11:35AM
Shift from radar to GPS should make tracking faster and more accurate, allowing more planes in the air. From a report:
Since World War II, air-traffic controllers have used radar to keep track of aircraft. But as of Jan. 1, most planes and helicopters flying in the U.S. must be equipped with transponders that allow their movements to be traced with GPS coordinates. The deadline caused a flurry of upgrades last year as operators who hadn't yet complied with the mandate rushed to equip their aircraft in time. Now, more than 100,000 commercial and general aviation aircraft have the transponders, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, including nearly all commercial aircraft and an estimated 60% of general aviation aircraft that need it.
“If you're flying an antique plane in the middle of Ohio, you don't have to have it,” said John Zimmerman, vice president of Sporty's Pilot Shop, an Ohio retailer and flight school. The U.S. controls 29.4 million square miles of airspace, including all of the U.S., large portions of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the Gulf of Mexico. The FAA mandate primarily applies to Class A airspace, which is 18,000 feet or more above sea level; Class B airspace, the areas surrounding the nation's busiest airports; Class C airspace, the areas around smaller regional airports; and above 10,000 feet in Class E, the most common airspace. LaGuardia Airport in New York is Class B. Richmond International Airport in Virginia is Class C.
New Audit Announcements
February 10, 2020
Audit Initiated of FAA's Pilot Training Requirements
Requested by the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and its Subcommittee on Aviation
Project ID:
20A3002A000
On October 29, 2018, Lion Air Flight 610 crashed shortly after departing Jakarta, Indonesia, resulting in 189 fatalities. Five months later, on March 10, 2019, Ethiopian Air Flight 302 crashed shortly after departing Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, resulting in 157 fatalities, including 8 Americans. Both flights involved the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft, which was certified by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in March 2017.
FAA Files Reveal a Surprising Threat to Airline Safety: the U.S. Military's GPS Tests
Military tests that jam and spoof GPS signals are an accident waiting to happen
By Mark Harris - 21 Jan 2021 | 16:00 GMT
Early one morning last May, a commercial airliner was approaching El Paso International Airport, in West Texas, when a warning popped up in the cockpit: “GPS Position Lost.” The pilot contacted the airline’s operations center and received a report that the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range, in South Central New Mexico, was disrupting the GPS signal. “We knew then that it was not an aircraft GPS fault,” the pilot wrote later.
The pilot missed an approach on one runway due to high winds, then came around to try again. “We were forced to Runway 04 with a predawn landing with no access to [an instrument landing] with vertical guidance,” the pilot wrote. “Runway 04…has a high CFIT threat due to the climbing terrain in the local area.”
CFIT stands for “controlled flight into terrain,” and it is exactly as serious as it sounds. The pilot considered diverting to Albuquerque, 370 kilometers away, but eventually bit the bullet and tackled Runway 04 using only visual aids. The plane made it safely to the ground, but the pilot later logged the experience on NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System, a forum where pilots can anonymously share near misses and safety tips.
GPS jamming around Cyprus gives our air traffic controllers a headache, says Eurocontrol
One-fifth of all flights in a 3 hour period were affected
Gareth Corfield - Fri 5 Mar 2021 / 11:45 UTC
GPS jamming of airliners not only causes navigational havoc but delays commercial airline flights too, EU airspace regulator Eurocontrol has complained in a new report.
Jamming of the essential navigational satellite signal has caused enough headaches for the EU air traffic control organisation to prompt an investigation, complete with an instrumented aircraft designed to detect signs of GPS jamming.
Airliners rely on GPS to a great extent, and air traffic management (the science of making sure airliners don’t come dangerously close to each other) is almost solely focused nowadays on building approach paths and airways that are defined by GPS waypoints.
https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/05/gps_jamming_eurocontrol/
Spitting, Head-Butts, Hug Attacks: Unruly Airplane Passengers Hit With Largest Fines Ever
Officials say, “if you are on an airplane, don’t be a jerk.”
Passant Rabie - 8 April 2022 4:40PM
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is cracking down on unruly passenger behavior, handing two airline passengers the largest fines yet as part of its “zero tolerance” policy towards disruptive behavior. They’re being hit with fines of $81,950 and $77,272 for their alleged unruly behavior.
“If you are on an airplane, don’t be a jerk and don’t endanger the flight crews and fellow passengers,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on the talk show The View on Friday. “If you do, you will be fined by the FAA.”
And fined they were. According to the FAA, the passenger that received the $81,950 fine was on an American Airlines flight from Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas on July 7, 2021 when she assaulted the crew and other passengers. A flight attendant tried to help the passenger up after she fell in the aisle, to which she responded by threatening to hurt the flight attendant, pushing them aside and even trying to open the cabin door. Two flight attendants tried to restrain her, but she kept hitting one of them over the head. After the passenger was put in flex cuffs, it still wasn’t over as she continued to head-butt, spit, bite and kick crew members and other passengers. The passenger was arrested when the plane landed in Charlotte, North Carolina.
https://gizmodo.com/spitting-head-butts-hug-attacks-unruly-airplane-pass-1848770728
FAA blamed after parachute show leads to Congress evacuation
The possible miscommunication was 'outrageous and inexcusable,' said Nancy Pelosi.
Steve Dent - April 21st, 2022
US Congress was evacuated yesterday after Capitol Police said it was “tracking an aircraft that poses a possible threat to the Capitol Complex,” CBS News reported. Everyone stood down a short time later when it turned out to be a parachute demonstration, but the incident caused a lot of ire. “The Federal Aviation Administration’s apparent failure to notify Capitol Police of the pre-planned flyover [at] Nationals Stadium is outrageous and inexcusable,” wrote House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The plane belonged to the Army Golden Knights parachuting team, dropping parachutists into the stadium for Military Appreciation Day. The pilot reportedly avoided flying over the restricted airspace over the Capitol Building and was coordinating with the control tower, but may not have had proper clearance, according to The Associated Press.
LA probe brings worries of prolonged vacancy atop FAA
A search warrant that mentions agency nominee Phil Washington could drag out an already slow-moving confirmation process.
Oriana Pawlyk and Kathryn A. Wolfe - 09/16/2022 07:57 PM EDT / Updated: 09/16/2022 09:19 PM EDT
A Los Angeles County criminal probe that involves President Joe Biden’s pick to head the Federal Aviation Administration has some in the aviation industry on edge, fearing a prolonged vacuum at the top of the agency at a fraught moment for air travel.
“It certainly has everyone’s attention,” one former Transportation Department official said Friday, two days after sheriff’s investigators executed a search warrant at an LA county supervisor’s home that sought, among other evidence, correspondence with FAA nominee Phil Washington. An attached affidavit includes a whistleblower’s allegations about Washington’s handling of a no-bid contract during his past job heading the county Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
The investigation comes amid a long-running political feud between Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva and multiple other elected officials in LA, including the supervisor whose home was searched Wednesday. But five officials from various sectors of the aviation industry said they expect the new attention to prolong Washington’s confirmation process, maybe even into next year — and the FAA hasn’t had a confirmed administrator since March.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/16/l-a-probe-vacancy-faa-00057289
Aviation Regulators Push for More Automation so Flights Can Be Run by a Single Pilot
Posted by msmash on Monday November 21, 2022 07:25AM
Regulators are pushing the UN's International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to examine ways of making single pilot operations the eventual norm in commercial flights. From a report:
In a working paper filed with the aviation standards body, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) requested on behalf of member states that the “necessary enablers” be created “for a safe and globally harmonized introduction of commercial air transport (CAT) operations of large aeroplanes with optimised crew/single-pilot operations while ensuring an equivalent or higher level of safety compared to that achieved in current operations.” There are two obvious drivers for the proposal – cost cutting and crew shortages. Technology has over decades reduced the need for more people in the cockpit and the hope seems to be that further improvements can pare the current two down to one.
The Naughty Words the FAA Removed From the Sky
New FOIA records from the FAA shed light on the frantic effort in 2015 to rename navigation waypoints related to Donald Trump and reveal the list of naughty waypoint names that were changed over the years.
Jon Keegan - May 28, 2024
A map of the US, with hundreds of five letter navigational waypoints laid out across the country Some of the 368 navigation waypoints that the FAA renamed between 2015 and 2024. Source: FAA / Beautiful Public Data.
Recently I wrote about the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) fantastically information-dense navigation maps. In that story, I explained the interesting system of navigation “fixes”— specific points of latitude and longitude in the sky used by pilots to navigate. These fixes have five-letter names and are designed to be pronounceable for clarity over noisy radios. The names can be colorful, often referencing pop culture, such as GNDLF (Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings), JJEDI (the Jedi knights from Star Wars), or SNFLD (Jerry Seinfeld). They can also be inside jokes or even slightly naughty.
https://www.beautifulpublicdata.com/trump-naughty-faa-waypoints/
US Transpo Sec wants air traffic control rebuild in 3 years, asks Congress for blank check
Price tag unknown
Brandon Vigliarolo - Fri 9 May 2025 18:51 UTC
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has unveiled an ambitious plan to yank American air traffic control systems out of the 1960s - and he wants Congress to fund the whole project up front so it doesn't get derailed by political wind shifts.
Air traffic control systems managed by the Federal Aviation Administration are a notoriously outdated, with decades-old hardware and software contributing to nationwide ground stops and ultimately putting travelers at risk of being stranded in airports, stuck on runways, or, god forbid, forced to sleep at the airport. Despite that, modernization efforts have been slow, with past projections suggesting that many core systems wouldn't be fully replaced until well into the 2030s.
Duffy's proposal, unveiled Thursday, would put modernization measures into overdrive, outlining a three-year framework to overhaul key components of the National Airspace System (NAS). The plan aims to reverse decades of underinvestment and outdated infrastructure that, while still safe, increasingly causes delays, outages, and inefficiencies across the system.
“Without modernization efforts – including upgraded technology, improved air traffic management, and enhanced safety measures – the risk of system failures, disruptions, and security vulnerabilities will only increase,” the Department of Transportation said in its proposal.
The DoT's NAS upgrade plans call for eliminating legacy time-division multiplexing systems and shifting to IP-based telecommunications, with new fiber, satellite, and wireless networks supporting over 30,000 services nationwide. Analog radios will be replaced with VoIP-capable equipment, legacy automation systems will be consolidated into two common platforms, and paper flight strips still used in towers will finally go digital under the Terminal Flight Data Manager program.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/09/transportation_secretary_air_traffic_upgrade/
Autopilot
FAA wants pilots to be less dependent on computer autopilots
US aviation advisory addresses concerns raised follow 2013 Asiana Airlines crash
Thomas Claburn - Wed 23 Nov 2022 21:00 UTC
The US Federal Aviation Administration has issued new guidance calling for flight procedures and training to ensure that pilots can operate aircraft manually, without being too dependent on automated systems.
The guidance comes in the form of an Advisory Circular, issued on Monday. It's directed at aircraft operators conducting multi-crew turbojet operations and at training centers and aims to avoid situations like the Asiana Airlines crash that cost three lives, and many more injured, after an inexperienced pilot stalled the aircraft on landing after ignoring “inconsistencies in the aircraft's automation logic.”
Clear
Annoyed With Clear, the Company That Fast-Tracks Its Customers Through Airports?
Get in line.
David Zipper - Dec 20, 20225:40 AM
Like some 10 million others, I am a member of TSA PreCheck, the federal program through which Americans can access faster airport security lines while keeping their shoes on and their laptops in their bags as they pass through the scanner. Applying for TSA Pre, as it’s often called, requires providing fingerprints and undergoing a background check, as well as paying $78 every five years.
When TSA Pre first rolled out in 2013, its efficiency suggested genuine progress. But that feels like a long time ago.
At Virginia’s Dulles Airport recently, I idled in a lengthy TSA Pre queue as the handful of people in another line to my left got far speedier service. This was thanks to Clear Secure, a publicly traded company. Clear Secure’s identity-verification product, CLEAR, is entirely separate from TSA Pre; its members typically pay over $100 per year to have their retinas and fingerprints scanned at airports. After a member’s identity is confirmed, Clear Secure workers usher them straight to a TSA agent, ahead of everyone else.
https://slate.com/business/2022/12/clear-airports-line-tsa-precheck.html
Employees
Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows
John Kelly, CBS News - Updated January 31, 2025 9:39 PM EST
Less than 10% of the nation's airport terminal towers have enough air traffic controllers to meet a set of standards set by a working group that included the Federal Aviation Administration and the controllers' union, according to a CBS News analysis of FAA data.
The issue has received renewed scrutiny following Wednesday night's midair collision between an American Airlines flight and a Black Hawk Army helicopter near Reagan National Airport outside Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people.
Only one air traffic control worker was managing the helicopters and some planes from the Reagan National Airport tower at the time of the collision, a job normally done by two people, two sources told CBS News Thursday.
Only about 2% of the towers met the Collaborative Resource Working Group's 2024 staffing targets for the number of fully-trained air traffic controllers. Only about 8% met the target even when including hundreds of air traffic controllers who are still in training, according to the analysis of 2023 staffing data for nearly 200 airport towers.
Hiring
The FAA's Hiring Scandal: A Quick Overview
An Air Traffic Control nightmare
TracingWoodgrains - Jan 29, 2024
A scandal at the FAA has been moving on a slow-burn through the courts for a decade, culminating in the class-action lawsuit currently known as Brigida v. Buttigieg, brought by a class who spent years and thousands of dollars in coursework to become air traffic controllers, only to be dismissed by a pass-fail biographical questionnaire with a >90% fail rate, implemented without warning after many of them had already taken, and passed, a skill assessment. The questionnaire awarded points for factors like “lowest grade in high school is science,” something explicitly admitted by the FAA in a motion to deny class certification.
https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-faas-hiring-scandal-a-quick-overview
America desperately needs more air traffic controllers. So why is it so tough to hire them?
Chris Isidore, CNN - 7:48 AM EST, Tue February 4, 2025
The US air traffic control system has been stretched nearly to its breaking point by a decades-long staffing shortage. It’s causing problems not just for the air traffic controllers that remain but the flying public at large.
And it won’t get better any time soon.
The Federal Aviation Administration, which runs the air traffic system, stepped up the pace of hiring in 2024 under President Joe Biden. But even though 2,000 qualified applicants were hired last year, they might only just barely replace the 1,100 who left the job either through retirement or due to the heavy toll the stressful job takes on those who enter the field.
That’s because nearly half of those hired in any given year will wash out of the program before they get to actually control aircraft after about three years from their initial start date.
So even with an increase in the pace of hiring, it could take as much as 8 to 9 years to reach full staffing, according to Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the union representing 10,800 certified controllers across the nation. He said that 41% of the union’s members are working six days a week, 10 hours a day, just to provide a staffing level that still isn’t adequate. Those 10,800 controllers currently on the job are filling the 14,600 positions needed to meet the current demand.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/04/business/air-traffic-controller-shortage/index.html
Hiring Scandal
The Full Story of the FAA's Hiring Scandal
Inside a decade of struggle to bring a scandal to light
TracingWoodgrains - Feb 04, 2025
On New Year’s Eve, 2013, after years of furtive work, the FAA abruptly threw a grenade into its air traffic control hiring pipeline.
Moranda Reilly always wanted to work in aviation. She read books on aviation heroes, watched air disasters, she listened to live air traffic control in her car. Around her neck, she wore an airplane necklace, a gift from a friend that she’d mended repeatedly. In her 20s, she elected to take the plunge and do whatever it took to make it happen. She quit her full-time job, took out student loans, and moved to attend a university that offered a two-year degree as part of the FAA’s collegiate training initiative (CTI) for air traffic controllers.
The FAA had established its CTI program in 1989, working together alongside a select group of universities and community colleges to build a better-prepared, college-educated workforce. By the early 2010s, when Moranda and other aspiring air traffic controllers entered the program, CTI was the primary way by which people would enter the field, with the FAA accepting virtually no off-the-street hires. On its website, the FAA instructed aspiring air traffic controllers that if they got CTI degrees, passed the profession’s aptitude test (the AT-SAT), and met other eligibility requirements, it would place them into a priority hiring queue, giving them first opportunity every time employment slots opened up. Students understood that the FAA hired virtually everyone who completed the program and passed the assessment.
As the CTI program ramped up with increasing success in the mid-2000s, Florida State College of Jacksonville applied to join, and in 2008, Sam Fischer launched their program. By 2013, he had settled into a comfortable rhythm, training wave after wave of successful students.
https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-full-story-of-the-faas-hiring
Fuel
FAA Continues To Stall On G100UL
Paul Bertorelli - June 5, 2022
When last I worked myself into a virtual lather over the glacial non-progress of the stupidly over complicated process of finding an unleaded aviation fuel, I allowed as how I had grown old watching this process. I’m two months older now and still, nothing has happened.
At Sun ‘n Fun, George Braly told us he was assured by the FAA’s Earl Lawrence that STCs for General Aviation Modification Inc.’s G100UL would “almost certainly” be approved by early May. It’s early June and not only is Lawrence gone from his job overseeing certification at the FAA, he’s gone from the FAA. A new person, Lirio Liu, now has Lawrence’s old job, and evidently has to start over again with the final review. She has declined to respond to Braly’s request for either an update or a face-to-face meeting.
In the interim, I was asked by a reader why I thought the FAA was delaying this approval. First, recall that GAMI has been at this for 12 years and has completed, in detail, all the FAA-specified test parameters and is the only company to have done this, plus a long-term fleet durability test with Embry-Riddle. The Wichita certification office has reviewed the project ad nauseum and sent it on to Washington for the final approval. All boxes checked.
https://www.avweb.com/insider/faa-continues-to-stall-on-g100ul/
Space Regulation
SpaceX
Citing slow Starship reviews, SpaceX urges FAA to double licensing staff
“Licensing at this point for Starship is a critical path item for the Artemis program.“
Eric Berger - 10/17/2023, 7:09 AM
In a remarkably frank discussion this week, several senior SpaceX officials spoke with Ars Technica on background about how working with the Federal Aviation Administration has slowed down the company's progress not just on development of the Starship program, but on innovations with the Falcon 9 and Dragon programs as well.
The SpaceX officials said they want to be clear that the FAA is doing a reasonably good job with the resources it has, and that everyone supports the mission of safe spaceflight. However, they said, the FAA needs significantly more people working in its licensing department and should be encouraged to prioritize missions of national importance.
In recent months, according to SpaceX, its programs have had to compete with one another for reviews at the FAA. This has significantly slowed down the Starship program and put development of a Human Landing System for NASA's Artemis program at risk. Inefficient regulation, the officials said, is decreasing American competitiveness as space programs in China and elsewhere around the world rise.
Technology
US air traffic control still runs on Windows 95 and floppy disks
Agency seeks contractors to modernize decades-old systems within four years.
Benj Edwards – Jun 9, 2025 8:36 AM
On Wednesday, acting FAA Administrator Chris Rocheleau told the House Appropriations Committee that the Federal Aviation Administration plans to replace its aging air traffic control systems, which still rely on floppy disks and Windows 95 computers, Tom's Hardware reports. The agency has issued a Request For Information to gather proposals from companies willing to tackle the massive infrastructure overhaul.
“The whole idea is to replace the system. No more floppy disks or paper strips,” Rocheleau said during the committee hearing. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called the project “the most important infrastructure project that we've had in this country for decades,” describing it as a bipartisan priority.
Most air traffic control towers and facilities across the US currently operate with technology that seems frozen in the 20th century, although that isn't necessarily a bad thing—when it works. Some controllers currently use paper strips to track aircraft movements and transfer data between systems using floppy disks, while their computers run Microsoft's Windows 95 operating system, which launched in 1995.
Cellular
Why you can never get any cell service on the tarmac
Dec. 08, 2019 - Madison Blancaflor
While just about everyone knows to turn their cellphone off or on airplane mode once the plane takes off, there's no rule against using it while your plane is on the ground. But we've probably all faced the struggle of trying to use our phones on the airport tarmac, only to get caught in an endless loading cycle.
I've experienced it personally on many occasions. I'll want to send a quick text to friends or family to update them that I'm about to be unavailable for a bit. Or I'll remember last minute that I wanted to download an episode of the Netflix show I'm currently bingeing for the flight. But more times than not, I'm unable to get a stable connection.
https://thepointsguy.com/airline/slow-connection-airport-tarmacs/
Exclusive: FAA Investigates If It's Safer to Leave Cellphones On
4G and 5G signals might help warn pilots when their GPS is being spoofed
Mark Harris - 02 Sep 2021
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been quietly funding tests with live cellphones in light aircraft cockpits as a possible counter-measure to GPS spoofing attacks, Spectrum has learned.
The series of tests, which occurred this summer in the skies over Virginia, used commercial smartphones connecting to standard 4G and 5G wireless networks operated by AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, according to documents filed with the Federal Communications Commissions (FCC).
The phones were running an app developed by the Mitre Corporation's Center for Advanced Aviation Systems Development, a federally-funded research center that provides the FAA with advanced technical capabilities in systems engineering, mathematics, and computer science.
Aircraft can't land safely due to interference with upcoming 5G C-band broadband service
Expect flight delays and diversions, US Federal Aviation Administation warns
Katyanna Quach Wed 8 Dec 2021 21:50 UTC
The new 5G C-band wireless broadband service expected to rollout on 5 January 2022 in the US will disrupt local radio signals and make it difficult for airplanes to land safely in harsh weather conditions, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Pilots rely on radio altimeter readings to figure out when and where an aircraft should carry out a series of operations to prepare for touchdown. But the upcoming 5G C-band service beaming from cell towers threatens to interfere with these signals, the FAA warned in two reports.
Flights may have to be delayed or restricted at certain airports as the new broadband service comes into effect next year. The change could affect some 6,834 airplanes and 1,828 helicopters. The cost to operators is expected to be $580,890.
https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/08/aircraft_5g_interference/
FAA urges airlines to replace altimeters that can’t filter out 5G signals
Better late than never: FCC asked aviation industry to fix problem in early 2020.
Jon Brodkin - 5/4/2022, 9:36 AM
The Federal Aviation Administration is reportedly urging airlines to retrofit or replace altimeters that receive transmissions from outside their allotted frequencies. The FAA is meeting Wednesday “with telecom and airline industry officials on a push to retrofit and ultimately replace some airplane radio altimeters that could face interference from C-Band 5G wireless service,” Reuters reported Tuesday.
FAA to airlines: 5G-sensitive radio altimeters have to go
Affected jet equipment will need retrofitting and eventual replacement, agency warns
Brandon Vigliarolo - Wed 4 May 2022 14:31 UTC
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) met with airline and telecom officials yesterday to present its latest solution to the instrument interference problem presented by C-band 5G: replace the affected equipment.
A letter from the FAA's head of aviation safety, Chris Rocheleau, proposed the meeting to establish a timeline for retrofitting or replacing radar altimeters in US airliners that are affected by 5G C-band signals, Reuters reported.
5G C-band was expected to roll out in the beginning of 2022, but was put on hold until July while the FAA, airlines, and jet manufacturers seek a resolution. A number of different planes were affected, including most of the Boeing 737 family, due to their use of radio altimeters, which use radio signals to determine the plane's distance from the ground.
FAA Wants US Airlines To Retrofit, Replace Radio Altimeters
Posted by BeauHD on Thursday May 05, 2022 03:00AM
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will meet Wednesday with telecom and airline industry officials on a push to retrofit and ultimately replace some airplane radio altimeters that could face interference from C-Band 5G wireless service. Reuters reports:
The altimeters give data on a plane's height above the ground and are crucial for bad-weather landings, but airline concerns about wireless interference from a planned 5G rollout led to disruptions at some U.S. airports earlier this year. The FAA wants to use the meeting to establish “an achievable timeframe to retrofit/replace radar altimeters in the U.S. fleet,” according to a previously unreported letter from the FAA's top aviation safety official Chris Rocheleau reviewed by Reuters. It also asked aviation representatives “to offer options and commit to actions necessary to meet these objectives.”
AT&T and Verizon give FAA another year to remedy C-band 5G interference issues
Airlines are retrofitting altimeters with radio frequency filters.
Kris Holt - June 17th, 2022
AT&T and Verizon have given the Federal Aviation Administration another year to fix altimeter issues as they look to roll out C-band 5G services around airports. “We believe we have identified a path that will continue to enable aviation and 5G C-band wireless to safely co-exist,” acting FAA administrator Billy Nolen said in a statement.
Under a phased plan, operators of regional aircraft with radio altimeters that are most susceptible to interference are required to fit them with radio frequency filters by the end of this year. That work is underway and the FAA says it will continue on an expedited basis.
The agency also says it worked with AT&T and Verizon to identify airports where they can bolster service with minimal risk of upending flight schedules. The FAA plans to monitor the pace of RF filter retrofits on altimeters too.
https://www.engadget.com/faa-c-band-5g-verizon-att-airports-altimeters-183206836.html
Outages
January 2023
A Corrupted Database Likely Caused the Outage That Delayed Thousands of Flights This Week
Airlines are still recovering from a corrupted file in the Notice to Air Missions system forced the FAA to ground thousands of flights.
Mack DeGeurin - 12 January 2023
It turns out a corrupted database file may be all it takes to briefly bring the entire air industry to a standstill.
In a statement released late Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration said it was still investigating the root cause of a systems error that forced it to dramatically ground all domestic flights for more than a hour Wednesday, but said a corrupted file in its Notice to Air Missions system is likely to blame. That crucial system provides air personnel with critical safety information related to flight operation. Pilots use the Notice to Air Missions system before take off to learn about potential closed runways or other hazards. In other words, it’s something every passenger should really want to work.
https://gizmodo.com/airlines-ground-stoppage-faa-delayed-flights-1849979684
A corrupt file led to the FAA ground stoppage. It was also found in the backup system
Gregory Wallace and Pete Muntean, CNN - Updated 11th January 2023
Officials are still trying to figure out exactly what led to the Federal Aviation Administration system outage on Wednesday but have traced it to a corrupt file, which was first reported by CNN.
In a statement late Wednesday, the FAA said it was continuing to investigate the outage and “take all needed steps to prevent this kind of disruption from happening again.”
“Our preliminary work has traced the outage to a damaged database file. At this time, there is no evidence of a cyberattack,” the FAA said.
The FAA is still trying to determine whether any one person or “routine entry” into the database is responsible for the corrupted file, a government official familiar with the investigation into the NOTAM system outage told CNN.
Another source familiar with the Federal Aviation Administration operation described exclusively to CNN on Wednesday how the outage played out.
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/faa-ground-stop-causes/index.html
FAA blames 'damaged database file' for major NOTAM outage
A technical glitch led to flights being grounded nationwide.
Jon Fingas - January 12, 2023 2:30 PM
There wasn't anything particularly sinister about the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) outage that prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to ground US flights on Wednesday — it appears to have been a relatively simple glitch. As part of its early investigation, the FAA has determined that the outage was prompted by a “damaged database file.” The agency is still working to identify the exact causes and prevent repeat incidents, but says there's still “no evidence” of a cyberattack.
The FAA grounded all domestic departures in the US on Wednesday morning after the NOTAM system failed the afternoon before. This was the first such failure in the country, and it prompted hundreds of delays that took hours to resolve. NOTAMs provide important information about potential problems along a flight's path, such as runway closures and temporary airspace restrictions.
https://www.engadget.com/faa-notam-outage-explanation-193048158.html
FAA says computer failure that grounded thousands of flights was caused by 2 contractors who introduced data errors into NOTAM system
Alan Levin and Bloomberg - January 13, 2023 at 2:32 AM PST
The computer failure that prompted a halt of all US flight departures was caused when a data file was damaged as a result of a failure to follow government procedures, the Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday.
Unspecified “personnel” were responsible for corrupting the file, which led to the outage of an FAA computer system that sends safety notices to pilots, the agency said in a statement. That triggered the FAA to order a halt to all US departing flights, causing thousands of delays and cancellations Wednesday.
“The system is functioning properly and cancellations today were below 1%,” the agency said.
The preliminary indications are that two people working for a contractor introduced errors into the core data used on the system known as Notice to Air Missions, or Notam, according to a person familiar with the FAA review. The person asked not to be identified speaking about the sensitive, ongoing issue.
Notams are advisories to pilots on safety-critical conditions at airports and other areas aircraft might traverse, including everything from warnings about bird activity to runway construction.
Like other computer systems that are critical to operating flights, the FAA has imposed procedures to ensure data aren’t damaged by technicians working on them, said the person. The file or files were altered in spite of rules that prohibit those kind of changes on a live system.
An aviation expert explains how the FAA’s critical NOTAM safety system works
This is why planes can't fly when NOTAM goes down.
Brian Strzempkowski, The Conversation - 1/14/2023, 3:50 AM
Late in the evening of Jan. 10, 2023, an important digital system known as NOTAM run by the Federal Aviation Administration went offline. The FAA was able to continue getting necessary information to pilots overnight using a phone-based backup, but the stopgap couldn’t keep up with the morning rush of flights, and on Jan. 11, 2022, the FAA grounded all commercial flights in the U.S. In total, nearly 7,000 flights were canceled. Brian Strzempkowksi is the interim director of the Center for Aviation Studies at The Ohio State University and a commercial pilot, flight instructor and dispatcher. He explains what the NOTAM system is and why planes can’t fly if the system goes down.
What is NOTAM?
Aviation is full of acronyms, and Notice to Air Missions, or NOTAM, is one acronym that pilots learn early on in their training. A NOTAM is quite simply a message that is disseminated to flight crews of every aircraft in the US.
The NOTAM system is a computer network run by the Federal Aviation Administration that provides real-time updates to crews about situations relating to weather, infrastructure, ground conditions or anything else that may affect the safety of flight. Trained professionals—like air traffic controllers, airport managers, airport operations personnel, and FAA personnel in charge of national airspace infrastructure—can access the system and enter any information they need to share broadly.
Pilots, air traffic controllers, and anyone else who needs to know about flying conditions can access the NOTAM system and make appropriate changes to planned flights. It’s similar to checking the traffic on your phone or on the local news before you head to work in the morning. A traffic report will inform you of potential hazards or backups on the roadways that may lead you take a different route to work.
FAA's NOTAM computer outage affected military flights
The data file that triggered the incident was corrupted by contractors.
Mariella Moon - January 14, 2023 10:55 AM
On January 11th, the Federal Aviation Administration paused all domestic departures in the US after its Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system failed. The agency later revealed that the outage was caused by a database file that was damaged by “personnel who failed to follow procedures.” Now, according to a new report from The Washington Post, the database failure also created issues for tools used by US military pilots.
One of the affected systems was the Defense Internet NOTAM Service (DINS), which typically comes with FAA alerts regarding flight hazards. During the outage, military pilots were either getting NOTAMs in duplicates or not getting any at all. The Post said an FAA bulletin notified military users that the system had become “impaired and unreliable.” Unlike civilian flights, which had to be grounded, military flights can proceed in situations like this. An Air Force spokesperson told the outlet that the military branch's pilots had to call around to ask for potential flight hazards themselves.
https://www.engadget.com/faa-notam-computer-outage-affected-even-military-flights-155514704.html
FAA Says Contractor Unintentionally Caused Outage That Disrupted Flights
Posted by msmash on Friday January 20, 2023 06:43AM
The Federal Aviation Administration has said that a contractor working for the air-safety regulator had unintentionally deleted computer files used in a pilot-alert system, leading to an outage that disrupted U.S. air traffic last week. From a report:
The agency, which declined to identify the contractor, said its personnel were working to correctly synchronize two databases – a main one and a backup – used for the alert system when the files were unintentionally deleted. The FAA said it had taken steps to prevent a recurrence of the outage in the system used for collecting and distributing the alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions, or Notams. “The agency has so far found no evidence of a cyberattack or malicious intent,” the FAA said late Thursday in a statement outlining preliminary findings in its continuing investigation. The FAA said that it had made necessary repairs to the system and has taken steps to make it more resilient.
The FAA grounded all US flights because contractors mistakenly deleted files
They were in the midst of synchronizing databases, the agency revealed.
Mariella Moon - January 20, 2023 5:20 AM
The contractors working on the Federal Aviation Administration's NOTAM system apparently deleted files by accident, leading to the delays and cancellations of thousands of US flights. If you'll recall, the FAA paused all domestic departures in the US on the morning of January 11th, because its NOTAM or Notice to Air Missions system had failed. NOTAMs typically contain important information for pilots, including warnings for potential hazards along a flight's route, flight restrictions and runway closures.
While the FAA only paused departures on the 11th, US flights were already being pushed back the day before after the outage occurred at around 3:28PM ET. The issue even had an impact on military flights that partly relied on FAA NOTAMs: Pilots reportedly had to call around to ask for potential flight hazards themselves.
https://www.engadget.com/faa-notam-outage-files-deleted-102006495.html
Massive outage grounded US flights because someone accidentally deleted a file
Our lives are in your hands, and you have butterfingers?
Brandon Vigliarolo - Sat 21 Jan 2023 01:15 UTC
The US Federal Aviation Administration says its preliminary investigation of last week's system outage that caused the first nationwide grounding of flights since September 11, 2001, has uncovered the cause: contractors accidentally deleted some essential files.
Oops.
In its first word on the outage since January 11, the day the FAA's Notice to Air Mission Systems (NOTAM) went offline, the agency said contract personnel were working to correct a synchronization issue between the live primary database and a backup copy. In the process, some incorrect keys were apparently pressed and more than 11,000 flights were grounded.
NOTAMs are notices of changes that may affect flight plans, like construction, weather or other emergencies. Pilots on long-haul flights can be stuck reading through hundreds of pages of NOTAMs before taking off; in short, they're pretty essential.
The outage last week was relatively brief, and only saw flights due to take off in a roughly three-hour window delayed or canceled before the FAA said everything was restored at 0900 Eastern Time.
The Morning After: The FAA grounded all US flights due to mistakenly deleted files
We've all done it, right?
Mat Smith - January 23, 2023 7:15 AM
The FAA paused all domestic departures in the US on the morning of January 11th because its NOTAM or Notice to Air Missions system failed. Now we know why: deleted files. Contractors working on the Federal Aviation Administration's NOTAM system, it seems, deleted some crucial files by accident. This resulted in delays and cancellations of thousands of US flights. The issue even impacted military flights that partly relied on FAA NOTAMs: Pilots reportedly had to call around to ask for potential flight hazards.
Apparently, its contractors were synchronizing a main and a back-up database when they “unintentionally deleted files” that turned out to be necessary to keep the alert system running. The FAA reiterated it has “so far found no evidence of a cyberattack or malicious intent.” We’ve all accidentally deleted a file, sure. It’s just never grounded the flights of an entire country.
Aviation overhaul bill passes US House... for the third time
Maybe it'll be different this year as clamors of 'I told you so' accompany the proposal
Brandon Vigliarolo - Thu 26 Jan 2023 18:04 UTC
The US House of Representatives has voted overwhelmingly to advance a bill that would create a task force to improve the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system that was at the heart of the nationwide flight grounding earlier this month.
Don't go thinking that NOTAM Improvement Act of 2023 will guarantee action, though. The bill's sponsor, Minnesota Republican Representative Pete Stauber, has introduced the same bill for the past two congressional sessions.
NOTAMs are used to relay last-minute information to flight crews that could affect their routes, like a change in conditions at an airport, a surprise storm or other phenomena that endanger the flight.
The 2021 and 2019 versions both passed the House as well, but fizzled out once they reached the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. This year, though, things are a bit different – the US just had its first nationwide flight grounding since September 11, 2001.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was forced to ground all US departures for several hours on January 11 because NOTAM went offline. The cause was later revealed to be a pretty serious mistake on the part of some contractors working to fix a synchronization issue between the live and backup copies of the database.
In the process of working on their “fix,” said contractors grounded 11,000 flights by deleting some rather important files. Per Reuters, the FAA identified the contractors as being from IT services firm Spatial Front, which The Register contacted for confirmation, but hasn't heard back.
The FAA said in a letter to lawmakers seen by the newswire that all Spatial Front employees directly involved in the deletion had their access to FAA buildings and systems terminated.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/26/notam_overhaul_passes_house/
FAA Says Computer System Update Should Prevent Another Glitch That Grounded 11,000 Planes
The FAA announced an update to its pilot-alert system as lawmakers also look at ways to study and modernize the database.
Nikki Main - 30 January 2023
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has implemented computer system changes to combat outages like the one that occurred on January 11, resulting in more than 11,000 flight disruptions.
Acting FAA Administrator Billy Nolen wrote a letter outlining the changes. In the letter obtained by Reuters, Nolen said that the FAA introduced a one-hour delay for database synchronization, which he said should prevent any inaccurate file alerts from immediately reaching the backup database.
https://gizmodo.com/faa-notam-airlines-ground-stop-1850049706
US warns aging air-traffic control code won't be fixed until 2030
NOTAM chance in hell this stuff is getting sorted soon despite outage
Brandon Vigliarolo - Tue 7 Feb 2023 20:30 UTC
The aging computer system that was behind the grounding of flights across the US last month will need until 2030 to be fully upgraded, the Federal Aviation Administration said, leaving US government leaders questioning why.
On January 11 the FAA grounded all domestic aircraft for the first time since the 2001 terrorist attacks when its Notice to Air Mission (NOTAM) servers, which provide critical information to pilots and air crews about flight safety or route planning, went down. The issue was traced, as it so often is, to someone deleting the wrong file, but fixing this apparently takes a lot of time.
Politicians were predictably outraged. In hearings before the Congressional Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on Tuesday, several representatives referred to the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAMs) as outdated, while Colin Allred (D-TX) said 2030 was an “unacceptably long time” to wait for improvements.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/07/faa_notam_air_traffic/
Washington DC - June 2023
Flights resume at DC-area airports after equipment issue grounded all planes
FOX 5 DC Digital Team - June 25, 2023 6:31PM / Updated 8:45PM
Flights resumed at D.C.-area airports Sunday afternoon shortly after a communications equipment issue caused the Federal Aviation Administration to issue a ground stop.
The ground stop impacted Reagan National Airport (DCA), Dulles International Airport (IAD), Baltimore/Washington International Airport (BWI) and Richmond International Airport (RIC). This prevented takeoffs and landings, so inbound flights were being diverted, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority said.
Departing flights are now back on track, according to the FAA, and flights from New York bound for D.C. continue. Flights from the West Coast, Midwest and Florida bound for D.C.-area airports have also resumed.
Radios
Airlines’ faulty altimeters spur FCC plan to regulate wireless receivers
In 4-0 vote, FCC takes big step toward crackdown on poorly designed receivers.
Jon Brodkin - 4/22/2022, 11:53 AM
The Federal Communications Commission unanimously voted to launch an inquiry into poorly designed wireless devices that receive transmissions from outside their allotted frequencies. The Notice of Inquiry (NOI) approved Thursday could result in new receiver regulations and is the first major step in the FCC's quest to prevent future conflicts like the high-profile battle between the aviation and cellular industries, in which a 5G rollout was delayed because airplane altimeters receive transmissions from the wrong spectrum band.
The FCC said it will “explore options for promoting improvements in radio frequency (RF) receiver performance, including through use of incentives, industry-led voluntary approaches, commission policy and guidance, or regulatory requirements.” The inquiry will also “gather up-to-date information on receiver performance, advances in receiver technologies, and various approaches for promoting development and adoption of more interference-resilient receivers while fostering innovation in the marketplace.”
Trevor Jacob
A YouTuber Purposely Crashed His Plane in California, FAA Says
Posted by msmash on Thursday April 21, 2022 11:07AM
The Federal Aviation Administration has found that Trevor Jacob, a daredevil YouTuber who posted a video of himself last year parachuting out of a plane that he claimed had malfunctioned, purposely abandoned the aircraft and allowed it to crash into the Los Padres National Forest in Southern California. From a report:
In a letter to Mr. Jacob on April 11, the F.A.A. said he had violated federal aviation regulations and operated his single-engine plane in a “careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another.” The agency said it would immediately revoke Mr. Jacob's private pilot certificate, effectively ending his permission to operate any aircraft. Reached by email on Wednesday, Mr. Jacob appeared unaware of the F.A.A.'s ruling and replied, “Where'd you get that information?”
Feds Say YouTuber-Pilot Intentionally Crashed Plane for Views
Trevor Jacob filmed himself parachuting out of a nose-diving plane, prompting a federal investigation.
Lauren Leffer - 21 April 2022 1:05PM
Apparently, actions have consequences.
The pilot, YouTuber, and former Olympic snowboarder, Trevor Jacob, who posted a 13-minute video of himself escaping a crashing plane in December 2021, no longer has a license to fly. This comes after the Federal Aviation Administration wrapped up a 3-month long investigation that uncovered some pretty insane findings.
In an April 11 letter to Jacob, first revealed in a New York Times report on Wednesday, the FAA said evidence shows he operated the flight to purposely cause it to crash, adding evidence like, “during this flight, you opened the left side pilot door before you claimed the engine had failed.”
https://gizmodo.com/feds-say-youtuber-pilot-intentionally-crashed-plane-for-1848823657
FAA revokes YouTuber's pilot license, saying he deliberately crashed his plane
The “I crashed my plane” guy won't be flying again anytime soon, unless it's commercial.
Andrew Tarantola - April 21st, 2022
On November 21st, Trevor Jacob's single-engine airplane fell out of the sky — a harrowing experience that the YouTuber just so happened to catch on film and upload to social media. In January, aviation experts began investigating the incident (as they are wont to do in the event of most every aviation crash) and, on Thursday, the Federal Aviation Administration formally accused Jacob of staging the entire incident and intentionally crashing his 1940 Taylorcraft for online clout.
At the time, Jacob, a former Olympic snowboarder, claimed that his plane had malfunctioned, forcing him to bail out and parachute to safely while the aircraft crashed into the Los Padres National Forest in Southern California. However, in a letter dated April 11th, the FAA informed him that he had operated his plane in a “careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another,” a violation of aviation regulations. The FAA also revoked his pilot's license effective immediately.
YouTuber who staged plane crash faces up to 20 years jail: US officials
Huw GRIFFITH - Thu, May 11, 2023 at 7:13 PM PDT
A YouTuber pilot who bailed out midair and deliberately sent his plane crashing into the ground to bolster viewing numbers on his channel could be jailed for up to 20 years, US authorities said Thursday.
In a video seen by nearly three million people and entitled “I crashed my airplane,” Trevor Jacob appears to experience engine trouble while flying over southern California in November 2021.
The dramatic footage shows Jacob, 29, ejecting from the single engine plane – selfie-stick in hand – and parachuting into the dense vegetation of the Los Padres National Forest.
Cameras placed all over the aircraft show its out-of-control descent into the forest, and its eventual crash landing.
https://news.yahoo.com/youtuber-staged-plane-crash-faces-205718964.html
YouTuber who crashed plane admits he did it for money and views
The maximum sentence for YouTuber's admitted crimes is 20 years.
Ashley Belanger - 5/12/2023, 12:39 PM
A YouTuber who deliberately crashed a plane to “gain notoriety and make money” has agreed to plead guilty to obstructing a federal investigation, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced yesterday. In his plea agreement, California pilot Trevor Jacob admitted to “deliberately destroying” the plane wreckage and repeatedly lying to officials.
The crimes of destruction and concealment with intent to impede a federal investigation carry a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment and a potential fine of up to $250,000. The Los Angeles district court may impose a lesser sentence due to the plea deal, though.
Jacob is scheduled to appear in court in the coming weeks, the DOJ reported. A DOJ public information officer, Ciaran McEvoy, told Ars that Jacob has not yet pleaded guilty. After an initial court appearance—essentially a bond hearing—a change of plea hearing will be scheduled. If Jacob pleads guilty at that hearing, a federal judge will schedule a sentencing hearing several months later. From there, Jacob would meet with the US Probation Office, which will draft a confidential pre-sentencing report recommending the sentence that the office thinks he deserves. Jacob and the prosecutors can either agree or disagree with that sentencing report, and then, ultimately, a judge will determine what sentence is imposed.
YouTuber Pleads Guilty to Intentionally Crashing an Airplane
Trevor Jacob faces up to 20 years in prison for an intentional plane crash and dismembering and hiding the aircraft's wreckage.
Nikki Main - 12 May 2023
A YouTube pilot has pleaded guilty to intentionally crashing an airplane and intent to obstruct a federal investigation. Trevor Daniel Jacob, 29, of Lompoc, California ejected himself from an airplane he was flying in November 2021, claiming there was no safe place to land, while the plane crashed somewhere near the Los Padres National Forest.
Jacob installed numerous cameras on the plane before takeoff, according to a DOJ press release, and had equipped himself with a parachute and selfie stick, all of which captured Jacob ejecting himself from the plane and parachuting to the ground. He uploaded the 12-minute video to YouTube which has 3.1 million views at the time of writing. The video shows Jacob taking off before claiming the plane was malfunctioning 35 minutes later when he parachutes out of the plane and the video shows it crashing into the side of a mountain. Jacob records himself hiking through the park and complaining of exhaustion before being picked up by local farmers.
https://gizmodo.com/youtube-trevor-jacob-airplane-crash-1850431856