Air traffic controllers at Newark Liberty International Airport again lost contact with airplanes yesterday.

It's the fourth such incident at that airport in less than a month and the latest in a string of alarming incidents and close calls around the country,

including a 90-second communication breakdown in Denver last week and close calls on runways at LaGuardia and Chicago

Midway. To ease congestion at Newark, the FAA announced today it will substantially cap the number

of flights there for the summer and much of the fall. For more on all of this, we're joined now by

David Grizzell. He was the chief operating officer of the FAA's air traffic organization during

their Obama administration, and he's also a former senior vice president of United Airlines.

Great to have you here. Glad to be here, Jeff. So you once oversaw the air traffic control

systems. Why are we seeing all of these issues apparently so suddenly? Almost all of these

communication lapses are the result of this 1980s vintage communication

technology that the FAA is still running.

It's not been used in the private sector for over a decade.

And the telcos are ceasing to support this communication technology.

You know, we've all been in the situation of where we receive a notification that we need

to update our phone or an app or it will stop working.

Well, the FAA has been receiving update notifications for a number of years, but they've

not had the budget in order to actually update the system.

What about the impact of the Trump administration cuts?

Because some of the FAA jobs that were eliminated had direct roles in supporting safety inspectors

and airport operations, that's according to the union and former employees.

Yeah, none of these cuts would have actually affected this problem, which long predated the Trump

administration.

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