A check is not a plan for improving the FAA

On Sept. 21, an aging circuit feeding the FAA’s Philadelphia approach control, or TRACON, failed. The system switched to its backup and found the fiber cut. A construction crew in New Jersey had dug it up. Five major Northeast airports went into ground stops: Newark, Teterboro, Philadelphia, LaGuardia and Kennedy.

In an Oct. 1 op-ed, Jackson Shedelbower called that day “another reminder” of why Congress should grant Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s $30 billion request. I spent 23 years in FAA air traffic control as a controller, quality assurance and training specialist, front-line manager and air traffic manager. Nobody wants this system modernized more than the people who have worked it. But his argument reads the lesson backward.

Start with what he gets right. The equipment is old. The circuit that failed was slated for replacement. Controllers and technicians keep this system running with skill and stubbornness, and they deserve better tools. Congress should pay for them. The controllers’ union backs the request, and so do the airlines and the pilots.

Now his own evidence. He reports that roughly two-thirds of the old copper has been replaced with fiber or wireless links. The meltdown happened anyway, and the line the crew cut was fiber. A backhoe does not care whether the cable it cuts is copper or glass.

He also says what the next money buys: “a modern air traffic flow management system and AI-powered software.” Neither is a second route into a control facility.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said as much that day. The agency is laying........

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