https://www.wsj.com/business/airlines/t ... _lead_pos9
This Air-Traffic Controller Just Averted a Midair Collision. Now He’s Speaking Out.
Jonathan Stewart says controllers didn’t walk off the job after recent FAA equipment outages; ‘I don’t want to be responsible for killing 400 people’
‘You Play God’: Air-Traffic Controller Opens Up About Trauma on the Job
‘You Play God’: Air-Traffic Controller Opens Up About Trauma on the Job
Play video: ‘You Play God’: Air-Traffic Controller Opens Up About Trauma on the Job
In an exclusive interview with WSJ, one veteran air-traffic controller opens up about his own close call and the reasons for stress-related trauma leave. Photo: Hannah Yoon for WSJ
By
Andrew Tangel
Follow
| Photographs by Hannah Yoon for WSJ
Updated May 15, 2025 8:20 pm ET
MALVERN, Pa.—Jonathan Stewart was into his fourth hour overseeing the planes flying near Newark, N.J., when he noticed two aircraft speeding nose-to-nose on his radar scope.
A business jet that had departed the Morristown airport was heading toward another small plane that had taken off from nearby Teterboro, a hub for corporate flying. A midair collision was potentially seconds away with planes flying at the same altitude.
The veteran air-traffic controller had been scribbling callsigns for the planes and flight information in a notebook, worried that radar and radio communication might fail as they had days earlier. After recognizing the unfolding conflict, he instructed the pilots to turn the planes away from each other, which they did.
But Stewart, 45 years old, was badly shaken. Hours after the May 4 incident, he fired off an email to Federal Aviation Administration managers, criticizing their leadership. “I take my job very seriously, as I do the safety of the flying public, and take pride in my performance,” he wrote.
For years, the FAA has struggled to fully staff air-traffic facilities and keep critical technology running. Frustrated with the current work situation and his own close call, Stewart took stress-related trauma leave, a benefit available for controllers.
“I don’t want to be responsible for killing 400 people,” he said in an interview.
Controllers rarely speak to the media publicly, especially without the supervision of public-affairs officials. Stewart said he wanted to set the record straight about controllers who he said had been demonized in news coverage.
Jonathan Stewart, an FAA air traffic control specialist, sits for a portrait at Main Line Armory in Malvern, PA., on Monday May 12 2025.
Jonathan Stewart said the controllers who manage Newark airspace need more resources to effectively do their jobs.
Several controllers Stewart works with have also taken leave, some after tech glitches temporarily interrupted their radios, radar and backups—incidents they feared could have catastrophic outcomes.
Controller absences and equipment problems have roiled the FAA’s air-traffic operation. They have also resulted in flight delays and deep disruptions at Newark Liberty International Airport and elsewhere. This week, an air-traffic facility near Denver lost communications for 90 seconds, an incident that the agency is investigating.
The FAA said it is pursuing short- and long-term fixes for controllers who oversee Newark airspace. Those initiatives include installing a temporary backup telecommunication system, more-reliable connections and a new radar system based in Philadelphia.
The agency also said it was limiting flights to the airport and has a healthy training pipeline to boost staffing.
Stewart doesn’t work at an airport tower. He’s a supervisor at a facility known as a Tracon, or Terminal Radar Approach Control. In addition to handling traffic for smaller regional airports, the Philadelphia site oversees planes approaching Newark. In a dimly lighted room, he toggles between supervising other controllers and obsessively tracking the moving dots representing aircraft on radar scopes.
“It’s like a videogame, but it’s like playing 3-D chess at 250 miles an hour,” he said. “We are the guys that are guiding your pilots home.”
The air-traffic control workforce is largely unionized, and controllers like Stewart at busy FAA facilities are well paid. Stewart, who isn’t in the controllers’ union, said he is on track this year to earn over $450,000, including overtime. Highly skilled controllers deserve to make that much without grueling hours, he said.
“You’re sacrificing a lot for that,” Stewart said. There are 60-hour workweeks, but also “you give up nights, weekends, holidays, birthdays, everything else. Your mental health and your physical health take a toll.”
Stewart said controllers aren’t to blame for all the recent delays and disruptions in and out of Newark. Controllers hadn’t “walked off the job,” as United Airlines Chief Executive Scott Kirby said in a recent letter to customers.
The comment was “insulting at best and just quite frankly misinformed,” Stewart said. Safety events, he said, might not be stressful initially. “But the thing about PTSD is this: For every time you have an incident—say a close call, a near-midair, God forbid—all of these things are cumulative,” he said.
A United spokesman pointed to Kirby’s more recent statements calling for better equipment and working conditions for air-traffic controllers.
Stewart, who noted he wasn’t speaking on behalf of the FAA, said the controllers who manage Newark airspace are elite but need more resources to effectively do their jobs.
Adrenaline rush
The air-traffic facility where Stewart and other controllers oversee airspace surrounding Newark, N.J., from Philadelphia.
The air-traffic facility where Stewart and other controllers oversee airspace surrounding Newark, N.J., from Philadelphia.
Stewart spent part of Monday afternoon shooting his pistols at an indoor range in this Philadelphia suburb. In a lounge appointed with a fireplace and Chesterfield chairs, he enjoyed cigars and Johnnie Walker Blue Label scotch. He goes there for stress relief.
Hard-charging, confident and at times brash, Stewart said he also spends free time at the gym and riding his motorcycle.
A native of Pensacola, Fla., he got his start in air-traffic control while in the U.S. Air Force. He knew little then about the field.
The adrenaline rush hooked him, said Stewart, and the job’s high stakes. “It’s effing fun, man…You play God because you cannot fail,” he said. “You cannot make a mistake.”
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
What should be done to ensure safety in the skies? Join the conversation below.
Stewart spent about a decade in the Air Force. His service experience allowed him to bypass the typical civilian route of going through the FAA’s air-traffic controller training academy in Oklahoma City.
Over more than 25 years, Stewart has worked at several civilian and military air-traffic facilities, including those in Miami and in New York. Philadelphia was added to the list after the FAA last year moved oversight of Newark’s airspace from Long Island, N.Y. The agency’s move aimed to address years of chronic understaffing.
The staffing situation hasn’t yet improved. A string of tech outages prompted some controllers to take trauma leave, further imperiling staffing levels and making training harder.
Breaking point
Stewart sees staffing as among the biggest problems in air-traffic control. Thin ranks of controllers limit how many aircraft can be managed effectively, he said.
He prefers controllers spending no more than two hours actively working traffic. Otherwise, it’s easy to lose focus and get tired.
“Like anything else, you’re going to have a breaking point,” Stewart said.
‘We are the guys that are guiding your pilots home,’ said Jonathan Stewart.
‘We are the guys that are guiding your pilots home,’ said Jonathan Stewart.
In Stewart’s close call earlier this month, he worked more than three hours without a break, according to an internal safety report viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
“The situation is, has been and continues to be unsafe,” Stewart wrote in the report. He also said: “The amount of stress we are under is insurmountable.”
The FAA, which is reviewing the safety report, said it treats all such reports seriously and takes necessary action.
Stewart said he spoke with senior FAA officials ahead of an interview with the Journal. The agency, he said, seems to be taking steps to ease staffing and other problems facing controllers who oversee the Newark airspace.
“For the first time that I’m aware of, they are throwing money at the problem,” Stewart said.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has announced an effort to broadly overhaul the nation’s air-traffic system and asked Congress for billions of dollars to make it happen. Duffy has said the Philadelphia facility would be given priority.
On Monday, Duffy said a software patch last weekend prevented a radar outage.
Congested airspace and failure-prone tech aren’t the only challenges the Newark-area controllers face. Helping aircraft navigate through winds from the Adirondacks to the north and around the Hudson River poses unique challenges.
Getting from the classroom to working live traffic there can take a few years—“and that’s assuming that you can do it,” he said.
Stewart’s time away from work might be limited. His leave entitles him to up to 45 days of regular pay. A return to controller duties will depend on a medical evaluation.
Asked what else he would like to say publicly, Stewart responded: “I would like to add that I’m tired and I want to go take a nap.”
Write to Andrew Tangel at andrew.tangel@wsj.com
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the May 16, 2025, print edition as 'Air-Traffic Controller Shaken by Close Call'.
感觉除非必要，尽量不坐飞机了
版主： kazaawang， wh
#2 Re: 感觉除非必要，尽量不坐飞机了
我这几年就是这样，除了要飞4小时或者回国这种，其他时候就尽量开车出去，各种好处，安全；大箱子随便装东西，不用像登机箱那样缩手缩脚 ；自主自在，想停就停；我现在一到飞机上就紧张，特别是飞机晚点，登机后不起飞这种，极其难熬。最惨的是去年圣诞节旅行，登机后3小时没有飞，好像是没有航道。
#3 Re: 感觉除非必要，尽量不坐飞机了
经常飞来飞去的情何以堪啊
You see in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend. Those with loaded guns and those who dig.
#4 Re: 感觉除非必要，尽量不坐飞机了
干不了辞职，让能干的人来干。设备和系统老旧只是一个因素，只要认真负责，好好维护，不应该出折磨多问题。这些设备和系统设计的都有很多redundancy, 运行折磨多年都没有问题，现在问题频发，还是人的问题。
看来设备维护的工程师也都被DEI取代了。
看来设备维护的工程师也都被DEI取代了。
x1
#5 Re: 感觉除非必要，尽量不坐飞机了
不是都被裁了？拜登朝没有DEI工程师？Best 写了： 2025年 5月 16日 11:51 干不了辞职，让能干的人来干。设备和系统老旧只是一个因素，只要认真负责，好好维护，不应该出折磨多问题。这些设备和系统设计的都有很多redundancy, 运行折磨多年都没有问题，现在问题频发，还是人的问题。
看来设备维护的工程师也都被DEI取代了。
x1
#6 Re: 感觉除非必要，尽量不坐飞机了
川粉需要感谢非川粉尤其是DEI，帮你们扛下了所有的锅，哈哈哈哈
please be thankful
干不了辞职？最该辞职的就是川宝和他的小跟班们
please be thankful
干不了辞职？最该辞职的就是川宝和他的小跟班们
Best 写了： 2025年 5月 16日 11:51 干不了辞职，让能干的人来干。设备和系统老旧只是一个因素，只要认真负责，好好维护，不应该出折磨多问题。这些设备和系统设计的都有很多redundancy, 运行折磨多年都没有问题，现在问题频发，还是人的问题。
看来设备维护的工程师也都被DEI取代了。
x1
凡所有相，皆是虚妄
#7 Re: 感觉除非必要，尽量不坐飞机了
你说的不 make sense，拜登朝崇尚 D'e'i， 没事，蘑菇头朝去 DEI, 一件接一件出事，尼玛我看新交通部长就是一大 DEIBest 写了： 2025年 5月 16日 11:51 干不了辞职，让能干的人来干。设备和系统老旧只是一个因素，只要认真负责，好好维护，不应该出折磨多问题。这些设备和系统设计的都有很多redundancy, 运行折磨多年都没有问题，现在问题频发，还是人的问题。
看来设备维护的工程师也都被DEI取代了。
x1
x1
x1
#8 Re: 感觉除非必要，尽量不坐飞机了
各种DEI hire 祸害现在开始爆发而已。就这个air controller 来说，尽职观察调度本来就是他/她的本职工作，天上那么多飞机时刻都有危险，所以才需要air controller来指挥，遇到险情stress，休息个两三天可以理解，休息45天就是不想干还要拿工资。
x1
#9 Re: 感觉除非必要，尽量不坐飞机了
DEI hire都是在别人建好了系统和平台，平稳运行的时候插入的，觉得自己也能干，DEI 数量积累到一定程度，需要他们解决问题的时候就掉链子了。后果都是滞后的。
在DEI 这麽强势的环境下，trump也不能完全扭转和免俗，只能逐渐纠正。
在DEI 这麽强势的环境下，trump也不能完全扭转和免俗，只能逐渐纠正。
#12 Re: 感觉除非必要，尽量不坐飞机了
5月4日又有啥事？
alt168 写了： 2025年 5月 16日 10:44 https://www.wsj.com/business/airlines/t ... _lead_pos9
This Air-Traffic Controller Just Averted a Midair Collision. Now He’s Speaking Out.
Jonathan Stewart says controllers didn’t walk off the job after recent FAA equipment outages; ‘I don’t want to be responsible for killing 400 people’
‘You Play God’: Air-Traffic Controller Opens Up About Trauma on the Job
‘You Play God’: Air-Traffic Controller Opens Up About Trauma on the Job
Play video: ‘You Play God’: Air-Traffic Controller Opens Up About Trauma on the Job
In an exclusive interview with WSJ, one veteran air-traffic controller opens up about his own close call and the reasons for stress-related trauma leave. Photo: Hannah Yoon for WSJ
By
Andrew Tangel
Follow
| Photographs by Hannah Yoon for WSJ
Updated May 15, 2025 8:20 pm ET
MALVERN, Pa.—Jonathan Stewart was into his fourth hour overseeing the planes flying near Newark, N.J., when he noticed two aircraft speeding nose-to-nose on his radar scope.
A business jet that had departed the Morristown airport was heading toward another small plane that had taken off from nearby Teterboro, a hub for corporate flying. A midair collision was potentially seconds away with planes flying at the same altitude.
The veteran air-traffic controller had been scribbling callsigns for the planes and flight information in a notebook, worried that radar and radio communication might fail as they had days earlier. After recognizing the unfolding conflict, he instructed the pilots to turn the planes away from each other, which they did.
But Stewart, 45 years old, was badly shaken. Hours after the May 4 incident, he fired off an email to Federal Aviation Administration managers, criticizing their leadership. “I take my job very seriously, as I do the safety of the flying public, and take pride in my performance,” he wrote.
For years, the FAA has struggled to fully staff air-traffic facilities and keep critical technology running. Frustrated with the current work situation and his own close call, Stewart took stress-related trauma leave, a benefit available for controllers.
“I don’t want to be responsible for killing 400 people,” he said in an interview.
Controllers rarely speak to the media publicly, especially without the supervision of public-affairs officials. Stewart said he wanted to set the record straight about controllers who he said had been demonized in news coverage.
Jonathan Stewart, an FAA air traffic control specialist, sits for a portrait at Main Line Armory in Malvern, PA., on Monday May 12 2025.
Jonathan Stewart said the controllers who manage Newark airspace need more resources to effectively do their jobs.
Several controllers Stewart works with have also taken leave, some after tech glitches temporarily interrupted their radios, radar and backups—incidents they feared could have catastrophic outcomes.
Controller absences and equipment problems have roiled the FAA’s air-traffic operation. They have also resulted in flight delays and deep disruptions at Newark Liberty International Airport and elsewhere. This week, an air-traffic facility near Denver lost communications for 90 seconds, an incident that the agency is investigating.
The FAA said it is pursuing short- and long-term fixes for controllers who oversee Newark airspace. Those initiatives include installing a temporary backup telecommunication system, more-reliable connections and a new radar system based in Philadelphia.
The agency also said it was limiting flights to the airport and has a healthy training pipeline to boost staffing.
Stewart doesn’t work at an airport tower. He’s a supervisor at a facility known as a Tracon, or Terminal Radar Approach Control. In addition to handling traffic for smaller regional airports, the Philadelphia site oversees planes approaching Newark. In a dimly lighted room, he toggles between supervising other controllers and obsessively tracking the moving dots representing aircraft on radar scopes.
“It’s like a videogame, but it’s like playing 3-D chess at 250 miles an hour,” he said. “We are the guys that are guiding your pilots home.”
The air-traffic control workforce is largely unionized, and controllers like Stewart at busy FAA facilities are well paid. Stewart, who isn’t in the controllers’ union, said he is on track this year to earn over $450,000, including overtime. Highly skilled controllers deserve to make that much without grueling hours, he said.
“You’re sacrificing a lot for that,” Stewart said. There are 60-hour workweeks, but also “you give up nights, weekends, holidays, birthdays, everything else. Your mental health and your physical health take a toll.”
Stewart said controllers aren’t to blame for all the recent delays and disruptions in and out of Newark. Controllers hadn’t “walked off the job,” as United Airlines Chief Executive Scott Kirby said in a recent letter to customers.
The comment was “insulting at best and just quite frankly misinformed,” Stewart said. Safety events, he said, might not be stressful initially. “But the thing about PTSD is this: For every time you have an incident—say a close call, a near-midair, God forbid—all of these things are cumulative,” he said.
A United spokesman pointed to Kirby’s more recent statements calling for better equipment and working conditions for air-traffic controllers.
Stewart, who noted he wasn’t speaking on behalf of the FAA, said the controllers who manage Newark airspace are elite but need more resources to effectively do their jobs.
Adrenaline rush
The air-traffic facility where Stewart and other controllers oversee airspace surrounding Newark, N.J., from Philadelphia.
The air-traffic facility where Stewart and other controllers oversee airspace surrounding Newark, N.J., from Philadelphia.
Stewart spent part of Monday afternoon shooting his pistols at an indoor range in this Philadelphia suburb. In a lounge appointed with a fireplace and Chesterfield chairs, he enjoyed cigars and Johnnie Walker Blue Label scotch. He goes there for stress relief.
Hard-charging, confident and at times brash, Stewart said he also spends free time at the gym and riding his motorcycle.
A native of Pensacola, Fla., he got his start in air-traffic control while in the U.S. Air Force. He knew little then about the field.
The adrenaline rush hooked him, said Stewart, and the job’s high stakes. “It’s effing fun, man…You play God because you cannot fail,” he said. “You cannot make a mistake.”
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
What should be done to ensure safety in the skies? Join the conversation below.
Stewart spent about a decade in the Air Force. His service experience allowed him to bypass the typical civilian route of going through the FAA’s air-traffic controller training academy in Oklahoma City.
Over more than 25 years, Stewart has worked at several civilian and military air-traffic facilities, including those in Miami and in New York. Philadelphia was added to the list after the FAA last year moved oversight of Newark’s airspace from Long Island, N.Y. The agency’s move aimed to address years of chronic understaffing.
The staffing situation hasn’t yet improved. A string of tech outages prompted some controllers to take trauma leave, further imperiling staffing levels and making training harder.
Breaking point
Stewart sees staffing as among the biggest problems in air-traffic control. Thin ranks of controllers limit how many aircraft can be managed effectively, he said.
He prefers controllers spending no more than two hours actively working traffic. Otherwise, it’s easy to lose focus and get tired.
“Like anything else, you’re going to have a breaking point,” Stewart said.
‘We are the guys that are guiding your pilots home,’ said Jonathan Stewart.
‘We are the guys that are guiding your pilots home,’ said Jonathan Stewart.
In Stewart’s close call earlier this month, he worked more than three hours without a break, according to an internal safety report viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
“The situation is, has been and continues to be unsafe,” Stewart wrote in the report. He also said: “The amount of stress we are under is insurmountable.”
The FAA, which is reviewing the safety report, said it treats all such reports seriously and takes necessary action.
Stewart said he spoke with senior FAA officials ahead of an interview with the Journal. The agency, he said, seems to be taking steps to ease staffing and other problems facing controllers who oversee the Newark airspace.
“For the first time that I’m aware of, they are throwing money at the problem,” Stewart said.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has announced an effort to broadly overhaul the nation’s air-traffic system and asked Congress for billions of dollars to make it happen. Duffy has said the Philadelphia facility would be given priority.
On Monday, Duffy said a software patch last weekend prevented a radar outage.
Congested airspace and failure-prone tech aren’t the only challenges the Newark-area controllers face. Helping aircraft navigate through winds from the Adirondacks to the north and around the Hudson River poses unique challenges.
Getting from the classroom to working live traffic there can take a few years—“and that’s assuming that you can do it,” he said.
Stewart’s time away from work might be limited. His leave entitles him to up to 45 days of regular pay. A return to controller duties will depend on a medical evaluation.
Asked what else he would like to say publicly, Stewart responded: “I would like to add that I’m tired and I want to go take a nap.”
Write to Andrew Tangel at andrew.tangel@wsj.com
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the May 16, 2025, print edition as 'Air-Traffic Controller Shaken by Close Call'.
#17 Re: 感觉除非必要，尽量不坐飞机了
DEI 又不是这几年才开始的，搞了几十年了，近几年左派猖狂比较高调而已，以前虽然不叫DEI，本质上一样Best 写了： 2025年 5月 16日 12:09 各种DEI hire 祸害现在开始爆发而已。就这个air controller 来说，尽职观察调度本来就是他/她的本职工作，天上那么多飞机时刻都有危险，所以才需要air controller来指挥，遇到险情stress，休息个两三天可以理解，休息45天就是不想干还要拿工资。
近来的飞行事故就是瞎裁员导致的，关键的东西就要有冗余，搞什么效率就是愚蠢无知
x2
