{"id":370,"date":"2025-05-22T12:00:39","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T12:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/?p=370"},"modified":"2025-05-22T14:22:52","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T14:22:52","slug":"united-training-director-says-reacting-to-air-traffic-control-issues-in-pilots-dna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/22\/united-training-director-says-reacting-to-air-traffic-control-issues-in-pilots-dna\/","title":{"rendered":"United training director says reacting to air traffic control issues in \u2018pilots\u2019 DNA\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

United Airlines Capt. Miles Morgan will be flying into the Newark, N.J., airport in a few weeks on his way to Greenland. He has no qualms despite the recent brief outages at the air traffic control center handling the airport.<\/p>\n

\u201cI fully understand why people might be anxious. My friends and family call me with the same type of questions,\u201d Morgan said. <\/p>\n

Pilots, however, aren\u2019t nervous, Morgan said. The 30-year United pilot and managing director of the airline\u2019s Denver-based flight training center said a loss of communication with air traffic control is one of the first things pilots learn to handle.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that\u2019s embedded in our pilots\u2019 DNA from a very, very early time,\u201d Morgan said.<\/p>\n

The nation\u2019s air traffic control system and the Federal Aviation Administration are under scrutiny after a series of brief communication outages at Newark Liberty International Airport. The latest outage was Monday<\/a> at the Philadelphia air traffic control center, which oversees flights at the New Jersey airport.<\/p>\n

Pilots lost communication for about 90 seconds May 12 with the control center that handles Denver International Airport<\/a>. Air traffic controllers used another frequency to talk to pilots, FAA officials said.<\/p>\n

Messages were left with the FAA about an update to its investigation of the Denver-area incident.<\/p>\n

While authorities and airlines haven\u2019t reported any serious safety risks related to the outages, the incidents have spawned flight delays and cancellations. The outages have highlighted ongoing problems with aging and outdated equipment as well as staffing shortages.<\/p>\n

Democratic members of Colorado\u2019s congressional delegation asked Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Acting FAA Administrator Chris Rocheleau to immediately address the infrastructure and staffing problems at air traffic control centers. They said FAA employees let go<\/a> as part of the\u00a0Department of Government Efficiency\u2019s wide-scale federal staff reductions should be reinstated.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we are fortunate that our pilots safely managed this potentially catastrophic situation in Denver, this incident is part of an unacceptable pattern that many airports across the country are experiencing,\u201d Colorado Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet and Reps. Joe Neguse and Diana DeGette wrote in a letter Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The communication lapses are not as much of a safety issue as evidence of the need for systemwide improvements and modernization, said\u00a0Chad Kendall, associate professor of aviation and aerospace science at Metropolitan State University of Denver<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have not come into the 21st Century and kept pace with technological improvements,\u201d Kendall said. \u201cThese are government-run facilities, but the buck has been passed from one administration to another for many, many years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kendall said both planes and air traffic control centers have redundant systems that serve as backups if a primary component fails. But he said the communication outage at the Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center in Longmont, which handles traffic at DIA and surrounding states, was unusual because two ground transmitters went down simultaneously.<\/p>\n

Kendall, a pilot for 30 years, said the good news is that pilots and air traffic controllers train throughout their careers for such contingencies. \u201cThere are thousands of professional air traffic controllers and pilots operating thousands of flights each day very safely.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Layers of redundancy\u2019<\/h4>\n

\u201cTraffic!\u201d \u201cTraffic!\u201d<\/p>\n

The warning on board the Boeing 787 let Capt. Morgan know that a plane was uncomfortably close, about 600 feet above the plane he was piloting. The vertical buffer should be at least 1,000 feet.<\/p>\n

Lucky for Morgan, Capt. Toby Lopez, serving as first officer, Capt. Brian Boeding and passengers, the close encounter was provided by one of the high-tech flight simulators at United\u2019s Flight Training Center in northeast Denver.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this were real life, we would not be here,\u201d Morgan said. \u201cWe would have gone down 500 feet and we would\u2019ve gotten away from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Capt.
Capt. Miles Morgan demonstrates landing at Newark Liberty International Airport in a flight simulator in Denver on Friday, May 16, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang\/The Denver Post)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Morgan and Lopez could see the plane out the windshield and on the screen that\u2019s part of the \u201ctraffic collision avoidance system.\u201d Pilots can zoom out if they\u2019re flying longer distances or zoom in the closer they get to an airport.<\/p>\n

The \u201cmultiple layers of redundancy,\u201d provide backups to backups, Morgan said. \u201cIf we should ever get down to where we have only one system remaining, we would land the plane in almost every situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the case of communication lapses like those experienced in Newark and Denver, pilots would switch to the last frequency the transmitter was on. They also monitor an emergency radio frequency that\u2019s always in the background.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps the most important part of this is that we have a fully independent system on the airplane where we can see the other air traffic around us,\u201d Morgan said. \u201cWe know where they are, how far away, what direction they\u2019re moving, whether they are above or below us and whether they\u2019re climbing or descending.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morgan has put in at least 17,000 hours of flying over his career and has lost communication with air traffic control just once. However infrequent, dealing with the scenario is a basic part of flight training and United\u2019s policies and procedures.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight from the very beginning,\u201d Morgan said, \u201cit\u2019s something that we\u2019re familiar with, something that we\u2019re constantly thinking about.\u201d<\/p>\n