Transportation Sec. Sean Duffy Details Key Telecom Systems Involved In Latest Newark ATC Issues

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was asked about backup air traffic control systems, and outages at Newark Airport.

Transcript

00:00Sam O'Gazalek of Politico. You mentioned the backup system at the Philly Tracon and then also a software patch on Friday.

00:07Are those the same things or can you distinguish what the differences are, if there are any?

00:12So, do I want to take this? Do I want to go? I'll try it and then if I get it.

00:17So, because the telecom is so fast coming in and we have to slow it down,

00:27when the primary line went down and we switched to the backup line,

00:34the system we have in place was not adequately slowing down the feed.

00:42And so it overloaded that line and it went down.

00:46But again, we are trying to slow speeds down to 1990 speeds for 1980 equipment.

00:56So, we're going to build new high-speed resilient fiber lines,

01:02but we also then need technology from today that can take the speeds.

01:08And so, because they're mismatched, the second line got overloaded and went down.

01:14That's what happened both two weeks ago and on Friday morning.

01:20Did I get that right, Frank? Am I close?

01:22So, is the backup system operational right now? I know the software patch has been switched.

01:28So, the software patch actually worked on Sunday morning.

01:31So, that's why we didn't lose radar, we didn't lose telecom on Sunday morning.

01:36But the primary line went down and when that happened the prior two times,

01:40the whole system went down for 30 seconds.

01:42So, the controllers were concerned and that's why they did a ground stop for 45 minutes.

01:47However, we didn't lose telecom and we didn't lose scopes this Sunday.

01:51The backup line and the fix worked.

01:54So, the backup line was functioning the way it is supposed to.

01:57Does that make sense?

01:58Yeah.

01:58Okay.