GP:Nearly 80 flights were cancelled, and over 60 were delayed at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey after air traffic control radar went down for the third time in just two weeks.
Five controllers have already taken trauma leave over a 90-second outage on April 28.
The radar also briefly went down on Friday.
On Sunday, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded flights at the airport for 45 minutes. more here
What with helicopter parents when they were kids, and trigger warnings and safe spaces in kollidge, it may well be that those 90 seconds of communication outage were the most intensely stressful 90 seconds of those poor, fragile air traffic controllers’ lives. I’ll even give them a day – ONE day – time off to recover.
But it’s been almost two flippin’ weeks. If they’re still out on ‘trauma leave’ after this time then they are totally unsuitable for the job. Fire their asses already.
Oh, yeah, and let’s get an aviation radar and comms setup that’s not 25 to 50 years old, m’kay?
Anyone working as an air traffic controller needing to go on “trauma leave” needs to be fired – NOW.
WTF is “Trauma Leave” and how big of a pussy are you to need it for a POWER OUTAGE???
A policeman, fireman, or DEFINITELY a soldier may see HORRIFIC things just by way of the job, but are fully expected to pull up their pants, man the fuck up, and finish doing their DUTY. Maybe a day comp time and a CIS debriefing for something REALLY nasty, but then hi-ho-hi-ho, its back to WORK you go because its a job that NEEDS doing and people could die if it isnt.
I have known folks that burnt out. Ive BEEN folks that burnt out.
Know what you do then?
SOMETHING ELSE.
…you do NOT expect them to hold the door open just in case you get your shit back together somewhere down the road. Get out, and make room for the NEXT guy if you dont want to deal any more; better for YOU, better for THEM, and better for the folks you are SUPPOSED to be serving.
WEEKS of “Trauma Leave”?
GTFO.
Lives cant be gambled on someone so suceptible to stress that they are out so long they lose their SKILLS, ESPECIALLY over something they have no control over.
If they cant handle the lights out for a minute and a half without taking a month off, Im not really sure you’d want them talking a plane on fire down in a thunderstorm…
I hope they get this fixed. I love Newark. Nowhere else can you get that unique smell of a paint factory situated next door to a sausage plant.
@Handsome Olfactorian — Yeah, New Jersey, the good ol’ Garden State, where they call chemical plants “flower beds”!
If you’re interested in extraordinary olfactory experiences, you might try driving I-95 just south of Richmond VA. It’s been years since I’ve been on that route so maybe it’s gone now, but there used to be some sort of factory that smelled like they were burning wet skunks.
Old fashioned rendering plants at the Spokane stockyards years ago when it was hot outside would take your breath away. Pee ew they stunk like hell. And the potato processing plant out by Moses Lake, Wash. on I-90 would always get comments from my brothers and I when we were kids when we passed by it of who let the stinky fart out. And pulp paper mills also stink like hell on very warm days.
The NATCA union and the FAA have an iron curtain around their people, and we’ll never know who’s on “Trauma Leave” anywhere and at any given time. These five are just a tiny fraction of those who have availed themselves of this bureaucratic palliative care. I’d be willing to bet that a couple dozen others around the nation are watching daytime tv right now.
Similarly, we’ll never know the fate of the ATC at Reagan National who was on the job at the time of the infamous collision, and we’ll never get a follow-up in the media about that bloody ATC fight in the same tower weeks later.
Horrible and ridiculous procedures and incompetence are being papered over by bureaucrats. We only get glimpses into the madness. Then, the door is shut and we get distracted. Until the next time somebody screws up.
I know Macron on the train, high on cocaine, is big news right now, but we’ve probably got nincompoops on pharmaceuticals up in the tower. And I’d be willing to bet that many of these ATC hires never see the top of those towers. The system is probably top-heavy with “management” because the DEIs they hire can’t be trusted to handle air traffic, and the DEIs can’t be fired because of NATCA and the FAA. So they get a desk, a title and a fat paycheck. And they go on “Trauma Leave” at the drop on a hat. I’d like to see DOGE penetrate that.
Handsome Olfactorian, Uncle Al, and geoff the aardvark,
Try going to school in the 60s in Battle Creek, MI during the spring. When it’s hot out in May, the windows must be open for temperature control (no A/C back then).
When the wind was just right (which seemed all the time) the smell from Kellogg’s (cereal) and Ralston Purina (dog food) made us gag.
We would beg the teachers to close the windows!
Just Newark? Why aren’t we hearing these stories from everywhere else? Couldn’t be historic, systemic corruption, democrat control, or DEI could it?
We had a fellow driver when I worked at a wholesale florist 20 years ago whose rotten farts could clear the room. They were the worst farts that I ever smelled. He also chewed tobacco and would leave slimy tobacco spit in paper cups in his truck which almost got him killed or made to forcibly swallow that stuff if he didn’t take it out of the truck before the next driver. He was a horrible slob.
@ Claudia I grew up in Mentor on the lake, Ohio. None of our schools had A/C. I t could get pretty warm. And General Mills has a facility not far from me in Covington, Georgia. Drive by it and it’s like driving through a big box of Fruit Loops. So sweet it’s sickening.
Hey, at least they’re not burning pot.
I have mixed feelings about this situation.
As a Pilot, I have visited some of the busiest control towers and ATC sites in the country. Knowing the responsibilities of these folks weighs heavy on there ability. Yes, some of them do need time to decompress from near misses, accidents and close calls. I have the utmost respect for these people. But also, the new DEI hires have no ability to properly do their jobs and don’t give a shit whether they cause a problem or not. Today, I only fly uncontrolled airspace and bypass the likely stupidity of the DEI asshole running heavy traffic airspace.
I don’t remember anything like this happening when Biden was president – now multiple times in the first 100 days? I say it is sabotage by some asshole democrat
@venturaguy
“I don’t remember anything like this happening when Biden was president,”
Dude, they got the FBI to assist their political ambitions, you think the MSM is above reproach?
Pollyanna, I got some rainbow makers to sell.
Sabotage to make Trump look bad.
venturaguy
Monday, 12 May 2025, 11:42 at 11:42 am
“I say it is sabotage by some asshole democrat”
…I say it is sabotage by ALL the asshole Democrats.
And the usual weenie, gutless RINO aiders and abettors, don’t forget them.