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FAA addresses Denver ATC outage cause; duration shorter than reported

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FAA addresses Denver ATC outage cause; duration shorter than reported
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Federal Aviation Administration | Official Website

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has clarified the cause of an air traffic control (ATC) outage at Denver International Airport last month. Initially reported by local news station Denver7, the incident involved up to 20 aircraft unable to communicate with controllers for six minutes on May 12 due to radio transmitter outages.

The FAA contested this report, stating that the communication disruption lasted only 90 seconds. The agency attributed the issue to faulty radio transmitters, which have since been repaired or replaced. "Overlapping outages to radio transmitters and circuits caused the 90-second communications interruption at the Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center on May 12," stated the FAA.

Denver7 had reported multiple transmitter outages at the Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center in Longmont, responsible for airspace in Colorado and parts of six neighboring states. According to sources, communication was lost until a controller used a guard line typically reserved for emergencies to contact a pilot who then relayed instructions to other aircraft.

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The FAA acknowledged that four frequencies from two main towers were out of service, forcing controllers to use a backup frequency that also failed. Despite this, they emphasized that no passengers were in immediate danger due to existing safety protocols.

The incident comes amid increased scrutiny of the FAA following several aviation incidents, including ATC outages at Newark Liberty International Airport and a deadly midair crash involving American Airlines Flight 5342 in Washington DC. US Senator John Hickenlooper has expressed concern over aging ATC infrastructure and questioned Bryan Bedford, nominee for FAA administrator, about safety during a Senate hearing on June 11.

Bedford assured that redundancies exist within the system but acknowledged its age and need for replacement: "There are multiple layers of redundancy in the system, but we don't want to get to the second, third and fourth layer of redundancy. The system is old, it's tired. It needs to be replaced."

Funding remains a challenge as aviation experts cite unreliable funding levels as contributing factors. While $12.5 billion has been budgeted by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for ATC system upgrades, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy described it as merely a "down payment."

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