--:-- [Sound of a show intro fades out]
--:-- Annie Minoff: Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Annie Minoff. It's Thursday, May 15th.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] Coming up on the show, the chaos at Newark through the eyes of an air traffic controller. We heard he wanted to go public and talk to us on the record, and we were eager to get his perspective.
--:-- Annie Minoff: That's aviation reporter Andrew Tangle. He sat down with air traffic controller Jonathan Stewart earlier this week to talk about what's been going on at Newark.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background, smoking a cigar] I'm Jonathan Stewart. I'm an air traffic controller. I received my first rating in 2000.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] Welcome to The Journal.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] Excuse my voice, apparently I'm losing an occupational hazard.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] I don't think anybody wants to be involved in any sort of incident where safety is compromised. Nobody wants to be involved in that.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] It's not on anybody's wish list. So yes, under a lot of stress, under duress, yes, you don't want to be involved in any kind of incident where there's a loss of life.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Annie Minoff.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] I'm Jonathan Stewart, an air traffic controller with 25 years of experience.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] Andrew, can you tell us a bit about Jonathan's background?
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] Jonathan has been in air traffic control for 25 years. He started his career in the Air Force in the late 90s.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] I joined the Air Force to do air traffic control. I didn't do nothing about it. I just knew that I wanted to do it.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] So, Jonathan, why do you like being an air traffic controller?
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] I like it because it's effing fun, man. Like it, for lack of a better way to put it, like we get off on it.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] So, Jonathan, what do air traffic controllers do and what role do they play in aviation safety?
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] We are the guys that are guiding your pilots home. So that means when your airplane takes off, and your wheel's up, and your captain is told to contact departure, that's me.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] Jonathan describes airspace like the layers of a cake, with each layer managed by a dedicated team of controllers.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] The people in the towers at the airport, they're in charge of the bottom layer, where the planes take off and touch down.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] But Jonathan, he's in the layer above that. He's what's known as a radar controller.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] So those are the guys that are sitting in a dark room, staring at a scope. It's like a video game, but it's like playing 3D chess at 250 miles an hour.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] This video game is especially intense at Newark, which is some of the busiest airspace in the world.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] The complexity is insane. I've worked in roughly 10 to 12 different facilities in my career.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] The Newark Area C controllers, or Filly Area C controllers, they all love working traffic. Like, we push it to the limit every single day.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] But lately, Jonathan says that he and other controllers have been pushed beyond their limits.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] Throughout the country, air traffic control facilities are understaffed.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] The FAA has almost 11,000 fully certified controllers, but that's about 3,000 short of its target.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] The staffing is relatively, in my opinion, inadequate.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] And that's based on the numbers that we are told we should have versus the numbers that we do have.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] And that is in no way to place blame on anybody because that is not, you know, not my forte, so to speak.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] But it is a challenge when you have to work multiple radar sectors combined.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] Staffing shortages at Newark aren't just a problem for controllers like Jonathan. Our colleague Andrew says they're also a problem for travelers.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] The delays resulting from New York generally, including this particular facility, ripple throughout the country.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] And so to try to fix the staffing problem, the FAA made a big move.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] Last year, it moved oversight of Newark's airspace from Long Island, where it had been for years, to Philadelphia.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] They thought the new location in Philadelphia would be more attractive and lead to more success, lead to more of a pipeline for training.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] And early on, the FAA had touted some early signs of potential success.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] They had a healthier pipeline of trainees coming in. They found Philly more attractive.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] And look, Philadelphia is, you know, more affordable than Long Island.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] But this move to Philly also created some unforeseen consequences.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] When the FAA pulled off this move, they did so with a technological workaround, essentially.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] They didn't move a radar system or open up a new radar system.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] They opened up a satellite radar system that basically was just getting a feed via relay from the previous location on Long Island.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] And that introduced a lot of technological risks.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] Instead of having its own radar, the new facility would rely on a link from Long Island.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] But that link wasn't always reliable.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] That became frighteningly clear in late April, when those Newark controllers lost their radar and radios for about 90 seconds.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] I just got told that the approach lost all their radars.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] Three of their four radar screens went black, and they have no frequencies.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] Every controller nightmare is what happened at Reagan National in January where a plane and a helicopter collided.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] That is these are safety professionals behind the scenes.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] They do not want that to happen.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] And their tools are radar and radios.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] And when those go out, I've heard it compared to driving down the highway blindfolded and your hands tied.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] And they want you to be advised that they may not be able to radar contact you because of the radar issues.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] And they may lose you for certain times of when you're flying.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] For the controllers involved, the ongoing glitches around Newark Airport have been harrowing.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] The controllers were very shaken by this event on April 28th and the ones subsequent to it.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] And they were stressed out and they were worried about something bad happening.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] And after that event, four of them took stress-related trauma leave from their positions.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] And that added to the disruptions and staffing constraints at an already thinly staffed facility.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] Air traffic controllers can take trauma leave after an incident to look after their mental health.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] Earlier this month, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said that workers taking trauma leave had made the staffing situation at Newark worse.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] He described controllers as having, quote, walked off the job.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] Hopefully he misspoke because the controllers did not walk off the job.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] That comment rubbed Jonathan the wrong way.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] Walking off the job implies that they, of their own free will, left and refused to do their job.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] There's not a single controller in Newark Area C, to the best of my knowledge, that does not love their job.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] We would like to have more resources to effectively do our job.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] Yes, that is the case.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] But to say that someone would basically game the system and take trauma leave when they were not traumatized is insulting at best.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] And just, quite frankly, misinformed.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] We asked United about CEO Scott Kirby's comment.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] A United spokesman pointed to Kirby's more recent statements, calling for better equipment and working conditions for air traffic controllers.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] Nobody walked off the job of their own free will.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] They had to be taken out of position and relieved of duty because they were not mentally fit to do it anymore at that point because of the trauma that was involved.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] Jonathan was speaking from experience.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] When Andrew interviewed him, Jonathan was also on trauma leave after a scary incident of his own.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] That's after the break.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] You yourself are on trauma leave right now, correct?
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] Yes.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] Could you walk us through the close call on May 4th that led you to take that leave?
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] So I had been working in the operation for roughly three hours-ish at the time of the incident.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] Typically, I try not to work myself or anyone else longer than two hours.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] It's just been my experience that after that two-hour mark, your mental acuity begins to diminish a little bit because it's fatigue.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] You get tired.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] It wasn't just the long hours that were wearing Jonathan down, though.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] Since the technical glitches, he'd been doing a more complicated version of his job.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] Beyond the usual radar procedure, Jonathan was using pen and paper techniques to track aircraft, just in case an outage happened again.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] In my mind, if we are expected to lose radar, there is an operational advantage or, nay, a necessity to use a combination of the two to effectively separate aircraft and to ensure that were you to lose radar and radios again, that you're not going to have a catastrophic event.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] So all that said to say, yes, you do have a certain way to do it.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] The way I did it was the way that worked for me.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] That increased my workload, which led to me having a close call.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] So a nose-to-nose situation.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] A nose-to-nose situation, meaning two planes were at risk of a mid-air collision.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] Leading up to this moment Jonathan had been monitoring two planes departing out of two New Jersey airports a business jet and another small plane.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] The two aircraft were taking off around the same time.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] Jonathan was in charge of making sure that they stayed out of each other's way.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] But before he knew it, the aircraft were at the same altitude and at risk of colliding.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] So they were nose to nose, slightly offset when I saw it.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] And I expected them to be there just like that because that was the plan.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] I did not expect them to be at the same altitude.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] So we are still not sure there would be an investigation into that.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] But again, that's not my forte.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] But you caught the error.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] I caught the error and fixed it before it became worse.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] The issue was it was unexpected.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] So it caused me a great deal of stress.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] And then it made me angry because I don't like to be put in a situation where I'm guaranteed to fail.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] That doesn't make any effing sense.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] So that was the situation I was in.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] Due to that, I took myself out of that situation and have taken some time off to try to get my head where it's supposed to be.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] After the incident, Jonathan filed an internal report saying that the situation at the Philadelphia control facility was unsafe.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] An FAA spokesperson told the journal that Jonathan's report is under review and that the agency takes safety reports seriously.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] Jonathan says these kinds of experiences can be traumatic.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] You go straight into survival mode to separate those aircraft and make sure they don't hit.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] And then when that's over, then it really hits you.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] Then it hits you.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] I almost, you know, had a really bad error.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] You know, I could have, you know, done something terrible.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] Overall, what's been the toll of the fatigue and stress of the job on you personally?
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] Oh, me personally, it's not good for your health.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] That lack of sleep coupled with stress is a killer.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] It's not good for you.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] And in my situation, and other people are out on trauma leave, you do have acute PTSD.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] And you do have situations where you will have a recurring dream about the incident.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] And then that will make you uncomfortable enough to where you don't want to go back to sleep.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] So that can be a little bit of an issue as well.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] Jonathan says that flying is still statistically the safest way to travel.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] And he says he's been reassured by recent steps taken by the FAA.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] Last week, the FAA said that it's working to increase staffing levels at Newark.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] It's also adding temporary backup systems to prevent more outages.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] And eventually new high-bandwidth connections between Philadelphia and New York.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy also announced plans to upgrade air traffic control infrastructure nationwide.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] He said the Philadelphia facility overseeing Newark would be a priority in those plans.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] They are taking steps in the right direction to fix this.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] It is a top priority from everybody that I'm aware of to get the situation taken care of, be it the equipment issues as well as the staffing issues.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] It is being handled at the highest level and it is the highest priority, as it should be.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] What do you hope that people will take away from this interview and from hearing Jonathan?
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] One thing we wanted to accomplish with the interview is just to humanize one of these air traffic controllers who are right in the middle of this.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] They are behind the scenes.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] They're the ones who are under pressure to keep the planes on time and keep everyone safe with the resources that they have or don't have.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] I hope him coming forward helps personalize the situation and can help people at least see who the humans are behind the scenes.
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] Is there anything you want to add?
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] Anything I didn't ask about that I should have asked about?
--:-- Jonathan Stewart: [in the background] I would like to add that I'm tired and I want to go take a nap.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] That's all for today, Thursday, May 15th.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] Additional reporting from Robert Barba, Alison Sider, and Bodhi Atway.
--:-- Andrew Tangel: [in the background] Thanks for listening.
--:-- Annie Minoff: [in the background] See you tomorrow.
