NEWARK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’S RADAR SCREENS GO DARK
If you've been following the news lately, you might have heard that there have been "air traffic control incidents" at the busy international airport in Newark, New Jersey. The "incidents" have followed revelations of a number of "issues" involving air traffic safety in the United States. Only recall the tragic collision of a military helicopter and a civilian airliner at Washington DC's Reagan National Airport, an "accident" that I personally do not yet think has been adequately explained. In the case of Newark International, these incidents have involved its air traffic control system, which appears to have been "blanking out" for periods of time, the most recent incident being a 90 second outage of radar contact! If you've been following this crazy story, you'll be aware that there's all sorts of explanations being floated, from near-obsolescent, if not obsolete, equipment, to the computer programs that run the Air Traffic at Newark being on floppy disk media (I kid you not!). That's rather like saying that Air Traffic Control at Newark International is being run by an old Commodore 64 desk top computer. It probably won't be able to keep up, but at least it has cute noises and beeps it can make when something goes wrong. Seriously, though, I have no difficulty believing that the United States' air traffic control and airport ground control infrastructures are in need of a serious upgrade and renewal. If you've traveled by land or rail in this country, you'll know that our bridges and roads are a bumpy, deteriorating, pot-holed mess for the most part. Now translate those asphalt temporary patches and potholes to the air traffic control infrastructure, and you get the idea. It's a mess. And it's a mess for a very simple reason: you cannot go to war with everyone on the planet and maintain 700 military bases all over the world, and have a nice up to date domestic infrastructure. The costs of empire are always domestic degradation.
But I strongly suspect there may be something else, and more sinister, in play here, as is suggested by this article shared by R.G.(with our gratitude):
Radar screens that serve troubled Newark Liberty International Airport briefly go dark
You'll note that the article makes it clear that there have been numerous such incidents at Newark International: radios going down (not to mention the radar), and each incident is traceable to faulty, and doubtless out-of-date, overused equipment:
Radar screens servingNewark Liberty International Airport went black early Friday morning, raising more air traffic safety concerns at the busy New Jersey hub, federal authorities said.
The outage shortly before 4 a.m. EDT lasted only 90 seconds on a limited number of sectors, the FAA said, but the blackout is still a troubling development in the wake of revelations that controllers lost radio contact with pilots flying into the airport in recent months.
The difficulties were traced to Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) network out of Philadelphia.
"There was a telecommunications outage that impacted communications and radar display at Philadelphia TRACON Area C, which guides aircraft in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport airspace," according to an FAA statement. "The outage occurred around 3:55 a.m. on Friday, May 9, and lasted approximately 90 seconds."
A current veteran controller said the situation is getting worse by the day.
“It’s a s--- show, the controller told NBC News. "There’s new stuff every day. We work with a monkey on our back, knowing our equipment is not reliable. It’s like driving your car, knowing the brakes will go out any time.” (Emphasis added)
Keep that telecommunications outage that impacted the Philadelphia regional control in mind, because you might recall another similar incident a few years ago that occurred to the Salt Lake City Air traffic control. (q.v.
And just so we're all on the same page of high octane speculation here, recall the recent power outages in Western Europe that hit Spain, Portugal, portions of France, and left footprints allegedly as far away as the Great Britain and Poland. That story too had some interesting antecedents:
So herewith my high octane speculation of the day: I do not think Newark International airport's air traffic control difficulties are simply do to crumbling, obsolescent infrastructure and equipment. The difficulties are certainly traceable to that as one, but only one, source of the problem. And the reason is relatively simple to figure out: with such obsolescent equipment, cyber attacks and hacking are made much easier. One can, as happened in Salt Lake City, as I pointed out years ago in that incident, take out the entire regional air traffic control, thus grounding planes. Add to this those curious incidents of direct attacks on internet and electrical grid hardware in California and Arizona a few years ago, attacks that have every indication of having been professional operations, and one gets the idea. such repeated incidents at Newark International suggest that more is involved than just malfunctioning, old equipment. After all, new parts for such equipment can be supplied. It is the persistent nature of the types of problems - failing telecommunications connections to regional air traffic control, radar suddenly going down, radio communications gone - that suggests more than just system-wide equipment failure. It really suggests targeting over time.
It's a national security issue.
And rest assured, if we can think of it, they already have, and are simply not talking about it. Imagine what admitting that hackers, working for "whomever", are causing these incidents would do to the air travel industry in this country, and you get the idea...
See you on the flip side...
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We were told that those non fading trails left by commercial jets was natural contrails that stayed longer due to jets flying at higher altitudes and burning fuel more efficiently than in my youth. In my youth the contrails faded to nothing fairly quickly rather than spreading out into non-fading artificial clouds. Well, a few days after Florida’s ban this lie has now been exposed. The jets no longer produce non-fading contrails and the skies are clear again. It appears that they were indeed adding stuff to the jet fuel and were indeed lying about not doing geo-engineering without informed consent. Now we need to find out what they were releasing before, the health problems linked to it, and who was responsible so they can pay for medical damages they may have caused to sensitive people like me. Perhaps now that the jets aren’t useful as a population/climate control delivery system anymore it’s being sabatoged and will be demonized to limit future travel like one of those UN agendas promotes. Who knows anymore.
Spoke too soon. I live on west coast of Florida. Skies above me and to the east are free of artificial clouds today. But when I went to the store this afternoon I noticed to the west from out over the Gulf of America were a bunch of long artificial clouds slowly blowing east over the heavily populated west coast of Florida. Now state waters only extend 12 miles offshore so aircraft over twelve miles off shore are technically not over the state but their artificial clouds will eventually float over the state traveling with the prevailing upper winds. Hmm… The jets flying over the state and over my house didn’t produce contrails but ones over Gulf were. Lots of people in Florida are watching the skies closely since the states ban and I’ve over heard others comment on artificial cloud trails blowing in from off Gulf. So evidently I’m not the only one paying attention to this state’s sincerity.
I’ll offer a few additional things to consider. I’ve been a pilot for the airlines for 25 years and have been frequenting Newark for 10 years.
A few years ago they moved the physical location of New York Approach control from Newark to Philadelphia and a lot of the controllers did not make the move. Qualifying a controller a section of complex airspace is a lengthy process.
During the Obama administration the selection process for air traffic controllers was radically altered. The old process was a military style aptitude test, essentially an IQ test. For example they would put you in a room with a recording of normal aviation air traffic radio communications playing, then they would read you a string of numbers and you would repeat them in reverse order. Not many people are good at that, but they know being good at that is a characteristic common to very successful controllers.
Obama ordered that test disbanded and it’s became all DEI based. If a 25 year old came out of the Air Force with a few years as a military air traffic controller they were rejected. If you played high school football, worked at Walmart, and were demographically desirable you were hired.
The fundamental problem is that THE TRAINING PROGRAMS ONLY WORK IF TRAINEES ARE PRESCREENED FOR APTITUDE. This is true for every field and we know how to do it. The problem is that aptitude screening results in demographics that make clear the uncomfortable fact that nature is not fair. This has become glaringly obvious among pilots and is becoming more so. The left refuses to accept that people are born with a wide range of metal capabilities. Maybe 1 person in 4 is born with the aptitude to be an air traffic controller and maybe 1 in 10 for the most complex ATC posts.
We have hired a whole generation of air traffic controllers without testing them for aptitude. The US ATC system has about a dozen levels of complexity/compensation. We appear to have a lot of controllers that can handle the less complex ATC posts, but we have a severe lack of controllers that can handle the most complex ATC jobs such as the airspace around the big hub airports. When you mix complex airspace with wild summer weather ATC’s job becomes enormously complicated.
The idea that “AI” with take over for pilots or controllers is absurd. A Ph.D. could easily be done on the way pilots and controllers communicate in a high workload environment. It’s really fascinating to be a part of it. Slight changes in tone of voice speak volumes, a subtle emphasis on or the choice of a certain word, etc. all communicate a great deal. A controller will size up a pilot in one transmission listening to the stress in the voice, how quickly they speak, proper terminology, etc. Who can they trust. Who do they need to keep an eye on. Who do they prioritize.
We simply must implement aptitude testing.
If you want to replace a system it helps if you get in there, to back up your dodgy claims of “corruption and inefficiency,” and sabotage the existing, targeted system. Elon Musk not so long ago warned about the dangers of AI but now he’s going all in with his Memphis Trojan Horse operation. We know he wants to replace the FAA’s air traffic control system with one of his own devising so let’s attack a system at an airport that will get national attention. Not the Mason City Municipal Airport from which the music died but Newark. Lots of planes in and out. Create another contract-cherry-picking opportunity for Musk’s Dodgy operatives so Elon can provide us with a “safe and secure,” cutting edge air traffic CONTROL SYSTEM using AI and Lord knows what else, and for purposes of clarity and truth-in-advertising, call Elon’s system Skynet.
While sabotage is possible, there is no official mention of foul play, since acknowledging sabotage would force the White House to respond.
Regardless, these incidents occurring at sensitive sites in the US, UK and Europe underscore a period of heightened vulnerability.
Likewise, there have been several unexplained incidents in Iran in April and May including fires and explosions at sensitive sites across the country. However, Iran would never admit if any were sabotage, as it would be forced to respond.
Regarding air travel:
We are also informed that President Trump wants rid of his ageing Air Force One 747-200B aircraft due to their 30 years age. The presidential air transport fleet consists of two specially configured Boeing 747-200Bs — tail numbers 28000 and 29000 — with the Air Force designation VC-25. When the president is aboard either aircraft, or any Air Force aircraft, the radio call sign is “Air Force One.”
It has been widely reported Trump has been offered a substantial gift from the Qatari royal family who plan to give him a modern and luxurious 12 year old Boeing 747-8, estimated to be worth $400m, to the US Department of Defence to be used as part of a the “Air Force One” fleet of planes.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg4zk22n9wo
However, many commentators have called the offer sleezy and that Trump will be beholden to Qatar. The classical phrase “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts” comes to mind. A Trojan horse?
There again Qatar may just want rid of a very expensive white elephant!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2025/05/14/qatar-747-trump/
As I have written before, the Americas and Western Europe are being thrown under the bus. As for Iran, China, and Russia, they are to be destroyed by war. We might throw the Indian subcontinent onto the kill list as well. The question is, who will benefit from this destruction?
Translation, human air controllers are obsolete and they are now likely creating a problem so they can get funding for an AI replacement system. Older computers might have been more hack proof because their chips were not built with back doors like modern ones are and thus it might have been the reason they were preferred until now. Of course in the future when rare space weather or war takes everything down, AI is history and so is everything reliant upon AI infrastructure.
U. S. Trash:
https://youtu.be/p4dZ2jDP_k4