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federal aviation administration
Duffy Warns Technical Issues, Chaos at Newark Airport Could Spread Across US
The transportation secretary has called for upgrades to the systems used by air traffic controllers; he voted against such improvements when he was in Congress.
May 12, 2025
Travelers at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey on Monday were still being impacted by flight delays and cancellations after numerous technical issues in recent days interrupted air traffic control operations—disruptions that U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Sunday are likely to spread to the nation's other airports.
Duffy toldNBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday that he is currently "concerned about the whole airspace," but said traveling by air is still safe.
"The lights are blinking, the sirens are turning," said Duffy. "What you see in Newark is gonna happen in other places across the country."
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement that Newark's most recent technical disruption on Sunday was the result of a "telecommunications issue" at Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) Area C facility, which guides aircraft in and out of Newark.
Air traffic control systems were also disrupted on Friday, with controllers at the same facility losing radar and radio contact for about 90 seconds.
At least five air traffic controllers at TRACON Area C are currently on 45 days of trauma leave after a similar incident on April 28 during a busy afternoon.
The air traffic control team at the facility lost contact with all planes while they were managing 15-20 flights. One air traffic controller at Newark toldNBC News after this incident that the airport is "not a safe situation right now for the flying public."
The disruption led to thousands of flight cancellations and delays—some longer than five hours—in and out of Newark, which serves more than 24 million travelers per year and is the nation's 12th busiest airport.
Duffy denied on Sunday that job cuts affecting about 400 staffers at the FAA—spearheaded by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, headed by billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk—had anything to do with the problems at Newark.
But representatives of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists union, which represents about 11,000 employees who support air traffic controllers, warned earlier this year that layoffs would result in critical workers guiding planes in and out of airports with less support from the FAA.
The job cuts affected workers including administrative and logistics technicians, aeronautical information specialists, and maintenance mechanics.
The FAA has blamed many of the issues at Newark, where TRACON Area C has been affected by outages four times since November, on equipment failures and staffing shortages.
Duffy has called for air travel upgrades including investments in digital flight data management, improvements to radio systems, and extending the retirement age for air traffic controllers to 61, up from 56.
On CNN last week, Kaitlan Collins pointed out that Duffy, then a Republican member of the U.S. House, joined his party in voting against upgrades to air traffic control systems.
On Sunday, signs were already emerging that staffing and technical issues could be spreading to other airports with impacts on travel.
An equipment outage at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport—the busiest in the world—led to a ground stop for more than an hour, delaying 1,337 flights. FAA staffing shortages at a control tower in Austin, Texas also led to delays for 145 flights.
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Calls Grow for Federal Probe Into Possible 'Criminal' Musk Corruption at Aviation Agency
"The public has a right to know that their tax dollars are being spent in the public's best interest and not to benefit a government employee's financial interests," according to a recent ethics complaint filed by the Campaign Legal Center.
Mar 17, 2025
The drum beat for a federal probe into whether billionaire and GOP donor Elon Musk violated conflict of interest law through his dealings with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is growing louder following reporting that technology from Musk's Starlink, the satellite network developed by its company SpaceX, will be involved in upgrading the FAA air traffic control system.
On Monday, a group of Democratic senators sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Acting Inspector General at the Transportation Department, Mitch Behm, demanding an investigation into whether Musk's activities at the FAA have violated the criminal conflict of interest statute. The letter was first reported by The Guardian on Monday.
"We are concerned that Musk... may be using his government role to benefit his own private company," the senators wrote.
The letter, sent by Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) cites coverage from The Washington Post, which in late February reported that the FAA was considering canceling a $2.4 billion Verizon contract to upgrade the FAA's communication system "that serves as the backbone of the nation's air traffic control system" and award the work to Starlink, citing unnamed sources.
The letter follows an ethics complaint, filed last week by the nonpartisan legal group Campaign Legal Center (CLC) to Behm, also asking for an investigation into whether the FAA's business transactions with Starlink "are improper due to violations of the criminal conflict of interest law."
Both the letter from the Democratic senators and the CLC complaint cite a section of federal statute that prohibits government employees—including special government employees, which is Musk's designation—from "participat[ing] personally and substantially" in any "particular matter[s]" in which the employee, their spouse, their companies, or other business partners have any "financial interest."
"Public reports establish that the FAA began using Starlink services and considering contracts with the company in response to Musk's requests," according to the letter from CLC. "The public has a right to know that their tax dollars are being spent in the public's best interest and not to benefit a government employee's financial interests."
In early February, Musk—who has been deputized by U.S. President Trump to pursue cuts to government spending and personnel—said that his so-called Department of Government Efficiency(DOGE) will "aim to make rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system."
According to Bloomberg, a SpaceX engineer arrived at the FAA headquarters in late February to "deliver what he described as a directive from his boss Elon Musk: The agency will immediately start work on a program to deploy thousands of the company's Starlink satellite terminals to support the national airspace system."
"There is no effort or intent for Starlink to 'take over' any existing contract," SpaceX wrote on X in early March. The company said it is working in coordination with another prime contractor for the FAA's telecommunications infrastructure "to test the use of Starlink as one piece of the infrastructure upgrades so badly needed along with fiber, wireless, and other technologies."
Per Bloomberg, the FAA is already testing or actively using multiple Starlink terminals.
The CLC letter argues that reporting provides evidence that "the FAA's business relationship with Starlink is tainted by Musk's influence. Musk is a government official with broad authority who acts with direct support from the president. With this authority and support, he has openly criticized the FAA's contractors while directing the agency to test and use his company's services."
This "establish[es] a possible criminal conflict of interest violation, and an [Office of Inspector General] investigation is needed to determine whether the facts constitute a legal violation," per the CLC letter.
The requests to probe Musk's business connections to the FAA come as the U.S. has dealt with a series of plane crashes and accidents, which in some cases have been deadly, and has invited scrutiny of the country's air traffic control system.
John P. Pelissero, the director of a government ethics program at Santa Clara University, told the Post that it appears that "because of Musk's current position in DOGE and his closeness to Trump he and his company are getting an advantage and getting a contract," speaking of the potential Verizon contract cancellation.
"Who's looking out for the public interest here when you get the person who's cutting budgets and personnel from the FAA, suddenly trying to benefit from still another government contract?" Pelissero said, according to the Post.
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After Latest Musk Starship Explosion, 'We Are All in the Debris Field of a SpaceX Mishap'
"Really reassuring that the SpaceX guy is taking over the FAA," one observer quipped.
Mar 07, 2025
The eighth test launch of SpaceX's Starship, which billionaire CEO Elon Musk claims will be the spacecraft that eventually transports humans to Mars, ended Thursday in much the same way the seventh did: an explosive failure that sent toxic and polluting debris raining down from the sky.
"We are all in the debris field of a SpaceX mishap," remarked journalist Aaron Rupar after the spacecraft exploded just minutes following its lift-off from a launch site in Texas.
Reutersreported that "several videos on social media showed fiery debris streaking through the dusk skies near south Florida and the Bahamas after Starship broke up in space shortly after it began to spin uncontrollably with its engines cut off."
"The back-to-back mishaps occurred in early mission phases that SpaceX has easily surpassed previously, a setback for a program Musk had sought to speed up this year," the news agency added.
Musk, who is leading SpaceX while simultaneously spearheading a lawless effort to eviscerate the federal government and its workforce, wrote on his social media platform following the Starship explosion that "rockets are hard."
Another failed launch by Elon Musks' SpaceX tonight.
Tesla's explodes. Twitter collapses. SpaceX crumbles. Everything Elon Musk touches turns to shit.
Let's call a spade a spade—Musk is a failure.pic.twitter.com/07DscAvPbF
— The Debt Collective 🟥 (@StrikeDebt) March 7, 2025
The explosion forced the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)—an agency that Musk and his cronies have infiltrated—to suspend air traffic at several Florida airports, citing "space launch debris."
The New York Timesreported that falling debris from the Starship explosion impacted flights "as far away as Philadelphia International Airport."
Musk, the world's richest man, has been vocal about wanting SpaceX subsidiary Starlink to take over the FAA's air traffic control system.
Following Thursday's explosion and subsequent flight disruptions, New Yorker staff writer Philip Gourevitch wrote sardonically, "Really reassuring that the SpaceX guy is taking over the FAA."
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