Midday News: Federal Judge Orders City Jails Overseen by Remediation Manager, Knicks Try to End 25 Year Playoff Drought, and Newark Airport Staffing Crisis

Janae Pierre: Welcome to NYC NOW, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Wednesday, May 14th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill.

Michael Hill: Federal judge has ruled a so-called remediation manager will manage New York City's jails until improvements are made. Martin Horn is a former correction commissioner from the Bloomberg administration. He says this comes as the city is already behind in closing the jail complex altogether.

Martin Horn: In the meantime, the condition of the facilities on Rikers Island have been allowed to deteriorate further. The city has certainly put itself in a very, very tight box.

Michael Hill: Judge Laura Taylor Swain says the independent manager will work collaboratively with the city to oversee the jail but report directly to the court. Mayor Eric Adams says the city will cooperate with the judge's ruling. The New York Knicks are back in Boston tonight looking to do something they have not done in a quarter century. WNYC's Sean Carlson has more.

Sean Carlson: The Knicks are one win away from the Eastern Conference finals. They haven't made it that far since the year 2000. The Knicks are quite unexpectedly ahead in their second-round matchup with the Boston Celtics three games to one. It's a best-of-seven series against the defending NBA champions. The Knicks won two thrillers in Boston last week. The champs responded by crushing the Knicks at Madison Square Garden over the weekend, but the Knicks bounced back Monday night and won another comeback game at a raucous Madison Square Garden with stars like Bad Bunny and Cardi B watching. The Knicks will try to wrap things up tonight at seven o'clock in Boston.

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Michael Hill: 61 with showers. Get that umbrella and keep it handy too. Showers, maybe some thunderstorms this afternoon. Steady temperature, around 61. Winds gusting up to 25 miles an hour. More shower and thunderstorm chances tomorrow with a high of 73.

Janae Pierre: Stick around. There's more to come.

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Michael Hill: Newark Liberty International Airport continues to struggle as runway shortages and ground-stop programs combine with equipment troubles and air traffic controller shortages. A report this week from The New York Times found that as few as three air traffic controllers were working Monday, 11 fewer than the target number of 14 that the Federal Aviation Administration set and the air traffic controllers' union set.

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says the agency will reduce air traffic at the airport while they try to address safety concerns. Michael McCormick has worked as a director of terminal operations, a manager at one of the air traffic control centers, and an air traffic controller, and he joins us now. Mike, thanks for coming on with us. What's your understanding of the underlying issues at Newark Airport?

Michael McCormick: Thanks for having me. The issues really started decades ago when the New York TRACON, located in Westbury, Long Island, has profoundly insufficient staffing. That really goes all the way back to 1981 in a controller strike. In spite of numerous initiatives, they've never been able to overcome that short staffing. They moved the approach control for Newark Liberty International Airport from Westbury to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the Philadelphia post control.

In order to make that work, they put a relay station in at the New York TRACON to send the radio and radar down to the Philadelphia post control. That's where we're seeing the equipment failures in that relay. That really takes away two of the most important tools that controller need, and that is the ability to communicate with the aircraft, and also the ability to maintain situational awareness on where the aircraft are.

Michael Hill: Losing radar sounds terrifying to everyone listening. I would liken it to, and this is on a much smaller scale, imagine you're driving along. You have no idea where you're going, but you're relying on GPS. For whatever reason, your phone loses power. You lose contact with GPS. Now, you have no idea where you're going. Can you describe what it's like to lose radar, to lose sight of what's going on out there in the airspace and you're responsible for.

Michael McCormick: Michael, it's just like when you lose that GPS, you've got to go old school, and you've got to pull out a map. Same sort of thing has to happen within air traffic control, and that is you have to revert back to procedures, techniques, and tools in order to maintain equivalent level of safety, to mitigate the risk of the loss of the radio and radar, but it's going to severely impact your ability and efficiency to move a lot of aircraft.

Michael Hill: How do you do that, though? If you lose the radar that you're relying on, you're trained on this, what do you then rely on if you don't have the radar to see what's out there?

Michael McCormick: Well, one of the first things that the controllers rely upon is what's known as flight progress strips. That is where it has the routing information, the altitude, and the last assigned altitude to give to the controller and any headings that they may be on. Because this is an instrumented problem, controllers can develop techniques such as keeping the aircraft altitude separated until they're ready to be cleared for the final approach into Newark, and also put additional spacing on successive departures coming out of Newark. That way, they're able to get the aircraft climbed and on their final route of flight and hand it off sooner. By using those tools and techniques, it's not optimal, but it can be done.

Michael Hill: You lose radar. You lose sight, to a certain extent, of what's going out there, but you're still in communication with the cockpit?

Michael McCormick: You could still be in communication with the cockpit. You also could be in communication with the overlying air traffic control center over top of this airspace and also in voice communication with Newark tower. You're able to get those air traffic control facilities to assist you as you restore radio and radar.

Michael Hill: Did you ever have the experience of losing radar? Anything like that when you were in the tower?

Michael McCormick: Unfortunately, there are allergies, and they do occur on a very irregular basis. Yes, we have lost radar, but only momentarily. It was quickly restored. Generally, there are backups that you can use. For instance, there are redundant channels on the radar that you can switch to. There are times where you retain the radar, but you lose the alphanumerics on the radar display. Again, there's backups of that. We revert back to the slight progress trips, so it does happen rarely.

Michael Hill: Mike, I have to ask this. At the end of the day, all of us would like to know if the skies are safe enough for us to fly and to do it right now. How would you answer that question?

Michael McCormick: Absolutely. Aviation remains the safest form of transportation. The greatest risk you would take going to Newark Liberty International Airport is not your flight, but the Uber or the drive to the airport. That's a thousand times more riskier than flying.

Michael Hill: Retired FAA senior executive Michael McCormick. Come back and see us, Mike. Thank you so much for your time, and please see us again.

Michael McCormick: Thank you, Michael.

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Janae Pierre: Thanks for listening. This is NYC NOW from WNYC. Check us out for updates every weekday, three times a day, for the latest news headlines and occasional deep dives. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

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