An official from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed that pilots flying into Denver International Airport lost communication with air traffic controllers for approximately two minutes due to multiple radio transmitter failures. Frank McIntosh, the FAA’s deputy chief operating officer, explained that the outage occurred when one of the primary radio frequencies failed, and the backup frequency also went down briefly. Controllers quickly switched to a 121.5 MHz emergency frequency to re-establish contact with pilots and direct them to use a secondary frequency. The outage affected airspace managed by the Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center, which oversees most of Colorado and parts of neighboring states. While some reports suggested the outage lasted six minutes, FAA officials stated this was an exaggeration. This incident adds to growing concerns about the reliability of the nation’s aviation systems, especially amid recent high-profile outages and staffing shortages.
— new from NPR
