New York Air Route Traffic Control Center

The front of New York Air Route Traffic Control Center

New York Air Route Traffic Control Center (ZNY) (radio communications: "New York Center") is one of 22 Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCCs) operated by the United States Federal Aviation Administration.[1] It is located on the grounds of Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma within the Town of Islip, in Suffolk County, on Long Island, in the state of New York. It is the busiest of all ARTCCs within the United States, and was the world's first en-route air traffic control facility.[1]

## Overview[edit]

The primary responsibility of New York Center is the separation and sequencing of over-flights, arrivals, and departures within its jurisdictional boundaries in order to provide safe, orderly, and efficient flow of aircraft.[2] It covers approximately 91,000 square miles (240,000 km2) of the Northeastern United States, including parts of Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania – and including the airspace over large portions of the New York and Philadelphia metropolitan areas.[3][4][5] Its oceanic control area also covers Bermuda.[6][7] Most of the flights handled by New York Center are long distance flights flying at high altitudes and transiting the region.[8]

The New York Air Route Traffic Control Center lies adjacent to the Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center, Cleveland Air Route Traffic Control Center, and Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center.[3][5]

## History[edit]

The New York ARTCC was established on January 11, 1956 in Hangar 11 at John F. Kennedy International Airport.[9][10] In 1963, the New York ARTCC was moved into a new, purpose-built facility at Long Island MacArthur Airport, located in Ronkonkoma, in Suffolk County. It was the 19th standardized ARTCC building put into operation under the FAA's modernization program started in 1960.[9][11]

The new facility was commissioned on July 21, 1963, and it was formally dedicated early that September.[11] It was was designed to be able to withstand a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union and included the FAA's first real-time solid state computer used for air traffic control purposes; protection against a Soviet nuclear attack was, furthermore, one of the key reasons cited in favor of the facility's erection.[9][10][12][13] The New York ARTCC facility was built at a cost of $15 million (1963 USD).[12][14]

In August 1981, many air traffic controllers picketed outside the New York ARTCC facility in support of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization labor union.[15][16] The protests were in response to Ronald Regan's efforts in killing the PATCO labor union.[15][16]

In 1999, the facility underwent an extensive modernization project.[17] As part of the project, many of the facility's electronic & technological components – including display screens and computers, were replaced with more modern and efficient ones.[17]

On March 17, 2001, the Federal Aviation Administration proposed closing & merging the existing New York Air Route Traffic Control Center and New York TRACON offices, moving them into a new, consolidated Long Island facility; these plans never went forward.[2][18] Similar discussions continued over the years, with proposals for a new "New York Integrated Control Facility" being built within 150 miles of New York City – but in 2014, these plans, too, were ultimately called off.[18][19]

Controllers at New York Center made direct communications with American Flight 11 and United Flight 175 on September 11, 2001, following the transfer of communications to ZNY from Boston Center.[20][21][22][23] Several New York Center controllers who were on duty at the time of the hijackings aided the investigators and provided officials with their accounts of what went on during the events and what they heard through the air traffic communications.[20][21][22][23] New York Center also helped the United States Military during the attacks.[22][24]

In 2011, a scandal was uncovered, in which it was revealed that several controllers at New York ARTCC were distracted and not doing their jobs while on duty, and that many of the facility's officials were aware of the problem but chose not to do anything about it, despite the behavior nearly causing collisions of large commercial aircraft.[25][26] Some workers had previously tried to rectify the issue but were threatened by some of their supervisors and other colleagues at the facility.[26] This led to officials in Washington getting involved, and the management was subsequently overhauled.[26]

In March 2020, New York Center temporarily closed after a controller tested positive for COVID-19.[4][27][28][29] The closure caused severe air traffic disruptions across the region, and resulted in all flights to and from the New York and Philadelphia area airports to be temporarily halted.[4][27][28][29]

In the early 2020s, following COVID-19, New York Center was experiencing staffing shortages, leading to temporary limits on the number of flights able to operate within the airspace and leading to occasional delays & ground halts.[30][31][32]

## 9/11 tape recording controversy[edit]

In 2004, New York ARTCC came under federal scrutiny after it was discovered that a tape made by air traffic controllers at the facility following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 was intentionally destroyed several months after it was made.[33][34][35] Several controllers at the facility – including controllers who were directly dealing with two of the hijacked planes – made the recording in the facility's basement starting just before noon on September 11, 2001, in order to document and recall the events and their accounts of the events which had just unfolded; each controller spoke on the tape for between five and ten minutes. While a union agreement was reached, in which the tape would be destroyed after the controllers would provide the information through written statements, a quality assurance manager for the facility hand-destroyed the tape a few months after its creation, before a written transcript of the tape could be produced and before anyone could listen to it – and the officials at New York Center never told higher-up FAA officials of the tape recording's existence.[33][34][35]

## References[edit]

1. ^ a b "New York Air Route Traffic Control Center (ZNY)". Federal Aviation Administration. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
2. ^ a b Wald, Matthew L.; Baker, Al (2001-03-17). "F.A.A. Considers Consolidating Regional Air Traffic Control". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
3. ^ a b "Visualize it: See FAA UAS Data on a Map". www.arcgis.com. Federal Aviation Administration. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
4. ^ a b c Burke, Minyvonne; Blackman, Jay (2020-03-21). "Coronavirus briefly grounds flights to NYC-area and Philadelphia airports". NBC News. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
5. ^ a b "New York Center Boundaries and Frequencies". notams.aim.faa.gov. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
6. ^ "AirNav: TXKF - L F Wade International Airport". www.airnav.com. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
7. ^ "Bermuda". www.aopa.org. 2015-04-24. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
8. ^ Wald, Matthew L. (1996-05-22). "Inquiry in Failure Of Air Traffic Computer". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
9. ^ a b c McCartin, Joseph A. (2011-10-06). Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers, and the Strike that Changed America. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-983679-6.
10. ^ a b Hudson, Edward (1963-07-21). "Air-Traffic Control Is Moved to Suffolk; AIR CENTER SHIFTS TO SUFFOLK SITE Serves All Traffic". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
11. ^ a b FAA HISTORICAL CHRONOLOGY, 1926-1996 (PDF). Federal Aviation Administration. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
12. ^ a b "Mac Arthur Opens Two-Day Tribute to LI Aviation". Newsday. September 3, 1963. pp. 3M - via ProQuest.
13. ^ "Emporia Gazette Newspaper Archives, Jun 18, 1962, p. 6". NewspaperArchive.com. 1962-06-18. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
14. ^ Crowe, Kenneth (September 9, 1963). "$15 -Million Air Center Dedicated". Newsday. p. 11 - via ProQuest.
15. ^ a b McCartin, Joseph A. (2021-08-05). "Reaching the End of the PATCO Era?". The American Prospect. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
16. ^ a b "Ronald Reagan's legacy". NBC News. 2011-02-02. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
17. ^ a b Gearty, Robert (1999-10-07). "AIR TRAFFIC SITE GETS UPGRADED". New York Daily News. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
18. ^ a b "Long Island to keep close to 1,000 aviation jobs, Charles Schumer says". Newsday. 2014-05-17. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
19. ^ "FAA air traffic control tower site still up in the air". Newsday. 2014-02-24. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
20. ^ a b Spencer, Lynn (2008-06-03). Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4165-7946-5.
21. ^ a b "ATC on 9/11: 'The Single Greatest Feat in All of ATC History'". NATCA. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
22. ^ a b c "Staff Report – "We Have Some Planes": The Four Flights – a Chronology" (PDF). National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 12, 2011. Retrieved September 6, 2011.
23. ^ a b Miller, Andrew Mark; Papa, Ashley (2022-09-05). "NYC air traffic controller recalls his experience working on 9/11: 'Completely aghast'". Fox News. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
24. ^ Braxton, Peter (2021-09-09). "A Military Pilot's Look Back at 9/11". Chicago Magazine. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
25. ^ Algar, Selim (2012-05-14). "Err-traffic control". New York Post. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
26. ^ a b c Hamilton, Brad (2011-02-06). "Flight trackers 'dogging it' at key LI post". New York Post. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
27. ^ a b Laris, Michael (2020-03-22). "FAA says 11 air traffic facilities affected by coronavirus outbreak". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
28. ^ a b Connelly, Eileen AJ (2020-03-21). "Air traffic controller with coronavirus forces NYC-area flight stoppage". New York Post. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
29. ^ a b "11 air traffic control centers have been temporarily closed after workers tested positive for coronavirus, highlighting a vulnerability in air travel". Business Insider. 2020-03-23. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
30. ^ Wallace, Greg; Muntean, Pete (2021-06-11). "FAA's new cleaning methods at air traffic towers aim to curb flight delays". CNN. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
31. ^ Muntean, Pete; Hunter, Marnie (2022-08-15). "FAA cancels New York ground delays triggered by staffing issues". CNN. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
32. ^ McNicholas, Tim (2023-06-23). "CBS2 Investigates: Shortage of air traffic controllers hitting New York especially hard, FAA staffing audit released". CBS New York. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
33. ^ a b Wald, Matthew L. (2004-05-06). "F.A.A. Official Scrapped Tape of 9/11 Controllers' Statements". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
34. ^ a b Wald, Matthew L. (2004-05-07). "Tape of Air Traffic Controllers Made on 9/11 Was Destroyed". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
35. ^ a b "Recording of air controllers in 9/11 attacks was trashed". Chicago Tribune. 2004-05-07. Retrieved 2024-06-19.

## External links[edit]

* New York Air Route Traffic Control Center (FAA)

40°47′2″N 73°5′49″W﻿ / ﻿40.78389°N 73.09694°W﻿ / 40.78389; -73.09694