| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| American democracy is bigger than any one person. | ||
| Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected. | ||
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We are still at our core a democracy. | |
| This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom. | ||
| Joining us this morning is Kevin Walsh. | ||
| He is with the Government Accountability Office, their Information Technology and Cybersecurity Director, here to talk about air traffic control system. | ||
| Kevin Walsh, I want to begin with Sean Duffy, the Transportation Secretary, yesterday announcing a new system. | ||
| I want to show it to our viewers and have you respond. | ||
| Here is the Transportation Secretary. | ||
| So we're going to rebuild some towers. | ||
| We're going to rebuild some tracons. | ||
| We're going to rebuild some centers. | ||
| Not all of them, but we're going to rebuild a few of them that need to be rebuilt. | ||
| So there'll be some bricks and mortar to this plant. | ||
| However, everything else, because really easy, everything else that controls the airspace is going to be brand new. | ||
| So we're going to have new telecom, new fiber throughout the system. | ||
| We're going to have brand new radios in our towers to communicate between air traffic controllers and with airplanes. | ||
| We are going to have a ground radar sensor, new radar for the ground and new sensors on our tarmacs and at our airports. | ||
| So our air traffic controllers who are in the tower are looking out with binoculars to see airplanes. | ||
| If it's cloudy or rainy, the weather's bad, it becomes very challenging. | ||
| We want to have all the tools so they can see where aircraft are at the airport on their screens, on their terminals. | ||
| Sean Duffy, the Transportation Secretary there. | ||
| Kevin Walsh, your reaction to what you heard there about this new system. | ||
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So first and foremost, the nation needs it. | |
| Our air traffic control systems are very old. | ||
| Aging systems are introducing more and more risk. | ||
| When we looked at this in our report released in September, we used FAA's own data and they found that there were 138 air traffic control systems, mostly, right, total, but there's also about 40 some-odd that are at DOD and other agencies. | ||
| But the FAA controls the critical ones, the 138 that they identified. | ||
| And we looked at them and three-quarters of them were having some degree of problems with sustainability. | ||
| That means they couldn't get enough parts or funding or spares to modernize. | ||
| So I hear Secretary Duffy and I'm encouraged. | ||
| I'm glad that this is getting the attention we need. | ||
| But I also want to sound a note of caution. | ||
| This is something that the government and our nation has been working on since the 80s. | ||
| The FAA attempted to modernize the airspace in the 80s and 90s. | ||
| It was initially projected to cost about $10 billion. | ||
| It wound up ballooning in cost up to $36 billion. | ||
| And then Congress stepped in and said, well, whoa, whoa, we want to stop the growth. | ||
| So in 2003, they initiated a new office at the FAA. | ||
| And that office was tasked with the NextGen program. | ||
| The NextGen program initiated in 2004 with a stated goal of finishing modernizing the air traffic control system of the National Airspace by 2025. | ||
| Clearly that did not happen. | ||
| Prior to Secretary Duffy, the latest estimates were now that it was going to be 2030 before it was finished, and they were spending about a billion dollars a year on this modernization effort. | ||
| So I'm encouraged, but the note of caution is this is not easy. | ||
| This is not going to be quick, at least if we're using the methods that we have in the past. | ||
| Now, Secretary Duffy and the administration are bringing new people, new mindsets, new approaches, which is great. | ||
| But this is our air traffic control system. | ||
| And the Silicon Valley adage of go fast and break things is not how I would want the national airspace to be modernized. | ||
| So again, I am rooting for them. | ||
| I desperately want them to succeed, but I also want them to be thorough and thoughtful as they go about this. | ||
| And I'm glad this is getting the attention that the nation needs. | ||
| You come across as very serious about this. | ||
| And is it because of the numbers that you found? | ||
| You referenced them. | ||
| 138 systems total, 51 of those systems unsustainable, 54 deemed potentially unsustainable. | ||
| Was it shocking to you? | ||
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It wasn't shocking just because we've been following this issue for so long, but to see it in writing in FAA's own determination, because this is not the kind of analysis an external party such as ourselves could really come in and meaningfully do. | |
| We don't have the resources to evaluate 138 different systems and make determinations on how sustainable they are, how critical they are to the national airspace. | ||
| But FAA did all that, and that's a credit to them. | ||
| They also have been doing it. | ||
| It wasn't just a one-off exercise. | ||
| We looked at their 2023 results. | ||
| They did it again in 2024, and they're in the process of doing it right now. | ||
| That's our understanding. | ||
| So I'm glad that this wasn't a one-off thing. | ||
| I'm glad that they are keeping their eyes on it. | ||
| That should help them focus their modernization efforts on the most critical ones. | ||
| One of the things that was included in their report that we examined was the operational impact of some of these systems. | ||
| So of the 138 we were talking about, you can break that down into which ones have issues or no issues. | ||
| There were 105 with issues, and there's a lot of numbers here, so bear with me. | ||
| The 105 is the one I'm going to come back to. | ||
| Of that 105, the ones that had some sort of spare parts or staffing issues or funding, 58 of them were deemed to have a critical operational impact on the national airspace. | ||
| So this is serious. | ||
| FAA is aware of the problem, but we've been kicking this can down the road for a long time. | ||
| At this point, you know, if we're going to kick the, if we're going to continue the kicking the can metaphor, perhaps the can has very little aluminum left. | ||
| Maybe it's mostly, you know, metaphorical duct tape and staples. | ||
| But again, I'm glad that transportation is focusing. | ||
| Well, you said it's not easy. | ||
| Why? | ||
| I mean, what have they been doing that you say isn't working for decades? | ||
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So some of the problems that they've experienced, lack of oversight, causing cost growth, unexpected requirements, we see a lot of, you know, since these systems have been growing and being fixed and repaired and maintained for, in some cases, north of 60 years. | |
| And to focus on that, 60 years ago, JFK was president. | ||
| So these air traffic control systems are not spring chickens. | ||
| As they have been maintained, they have been evolving and becoming their own unique problems. | ||
| We saw that sadly in Newark, where some of the localized issues there resulted in an outage, which thankfully was not tragic. | ||
| But I think those are some of the issues that we're seeing besides the difficulty finding spare parts. | ||
| Well, it was interesting because the Transportation Secretary, when he started out that event yesterday to announce this new system, was showing those gathered there and the cameras what the current system looks like. | ||
| And he joked saying, I didn't pull this from the Smithsonian. | ||
| This isn't relics. | ||
| This is what they currently use. | ||
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Yes. | |
| How does it look for those that didn't see that yesterday? | ||
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So during a hearing a few months back, Representative Massey actually was able to put up a screenshot showing what the system looks like. | |
| And it's picture an old green screen computer, you know, with a few rudimentary lines and charts. | ||
| So this is not a hyper-modern system. | ||
| And problematically, when FAA is modernizing these systems, it takes them about four to five years to come up with a baseline, at least of the subset that we looked at. | ||
| So that's four to five years to come up with some idea of what the cost and schedule are going to look like. | ||
| And then after they establish that baseline, it takes them another 12 years, in some cases 16 to 19 years for some of the ones that we looked at, to finish the product. | ||
| Altogether, we're looking at 20 years to modernize something. | ||
| At that point, it's not modern anymore. | ||
| Do you fly? | ||
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I do. | |
| And given what you know, why do you fly? | ||
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Despite these issues, the FAA handles 50,000 flights every day. | |
| I think it's a testament to the employees, to the air traffic controllers, to the pilots, to everyone who is doing their best to make up for the lack of the systems. | ||
| And it is to them that I would attribute the safety of the National Airspace. | ||
| What happened in Newark, losing frequency, losing connection? | ||
| From reporting, it sounds like that happens other places than Newark. | ||
| What is going on? | ||
| And what happens in those moments where the pilot is not hearing from the air traffic controller? | ||
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I've heard some of the recordings from the pilot, and to their credit, the ability to stay calm and unflappable is incredible. | |
| So what's going on in their mind, I'm sure, is, well, we did see some air traffic controllers take trauma leave after the event, according to reports. | ||
| In terms of what specifically happened at Newark, again, we have not done reporting or investigation. | ||
| The public reports that I have seen indicate that there was some sort of copper telecommunications cable that frayed. | ||
| And the FAA, again, is not unaware of these issues. | ||
| They have their FENS investment, F-E-N-S, which is intended to address issues like this. | ||
| And I believe, according to Secretary Duffy's announcement yesterday, that is one of the investments that is going to be accelerated to try and introduce better telecommunications infrastructure, not just at Newark, but across the nation. | ||
| So again, this is needed, and I'm glad they're focusing their attentions correctly. | ||
| What did you hear from Senator Ted Cruz, who was at that event yesterday, and why was it significant that he was there? | ||
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So I had an exchange with Senator Cruz during a hearing, again, after we released this report, and he asked me what it was going to take to fix the air traffic control system. | |
| And I stand by what I said back then. | ||
| This is going to take billions of dollars, many years, and many, many people to fix. | ||
| Billions, because how many billions? | ||
| Because Transportation Secretary Duffy said $15 billion is what Senator Cruz is pledging to get through Congress. | ||
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So that is an unknowable question. | |
| I mean, every time it seems like the government comes up with some sort of estimate over the years since the 80s, first it was 10 billion, then it grew to 36 billion and Congress pumped the brakes. | ||
| Initially, when in 2004 they came out with NextGen, I think it was another 15 billion that kept growing as well. | ||
| And we're spending a billion dollars every year, which sounds crazy. | ||
| I mean, it sounds like pocket change. | ||
| You just throw around. | ||
| But I don't want to give the impression that those billions weren't helping or wasting. | ||
| Those billions are what kept the 50,000 flights a day. | ||
| We're going to leave this here to take you live to a series of discussions on relations between the U.S. and India. | ||
| You're watching live coverage on C-SPAN. | ||
| My name is Kunal Paul. | ||
| I'm the executive director of the Kupteklinsky India Institute at Johns Hopkins University, and I'm on the organizing team. | ||
| Before we begin, I want to draw your attention to the screen. | ||
| There are a couple of QR codes that should appear on the screen on the next slide. | ||
| Right. | ||
| So right on top, on the top right, we encourage you to download the Whova app. |