<https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/17/us-airline-officials-crisis-5g>
US airline chiefs have warned that the introduction of a new 5G service could
cause US commerce to “grind to a halt” due to possibly grounding a significant
number of aircraft and might “strand tens of thousands of Americans overseas”.
Warnings of an impending “catastrophic” crisis in aviation came in a letter
sent to White House National Economic Council director Brian Deese,
transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
administrator Steve Dickson and Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, Reuters reported Monday.
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“Unless our major hubs are cleared to fly, the vast majority of the traveling
and shipping public will essentially be grounded,” the letter, signed by the
chief executives of American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines,
Southwest Airlines and Jet Blue, as well as freight and parcel carriers UPS and
FedEx, said.
They warned new C-Band 5G technology could interfere with critical airplane
instruments such as radio altimeters – which judge the distance from the ground
to the bottom of the flying vessel – and have an impact on low-visibility
operations.
“This means that on a day like yesterday, more than 1,100 flights and 100,000
passengers would be subjected to cancellations, diversions or delays,” the
letter cautioned, adding a call for urgent action to be taken.
“To be blunt, the nation’s commerce will grind to a halt,” the executives said.
Airlines for America, the lobbying group that organized the letter, and
government agencies were not immediately available for comment.
In a letter dated 4 January, the group thanked Buttigieg, Dickson and Deese for
“reaching the agreement with AT&T and Verizon to delay their planned 5G C-band
deployment around certain airports for two weeks and to commit to the proposed
mitigations”.
“Safety is and always will be the top priority of US airlines,” it said. “We
will continue to work with all stakeholders to help ensure that new 5G service
can coexist with aviation safely.”
As part of the agreement – which was dated 3 January – AT&T and Verizon agreed
to create buffer zones around 50 US airports to reduce interference risks and
take other steps to cut potential interference for six months.
But the agreement to delay wider implementation of the technology to 19 January
is about to expire. The airlines had requested “that 5G be implemented
everywhere in the country except within the approximate 2 miles (3.2 km) of
airport runways” at some key airports.
“Immediate intervention is needed to avoid significant operational disruption
to air passengers, shippers, supply chain and delivery of needed medical
supplies,” Reuters reported the letter as saying.
It also warned that flight restrictions will not be limited to poor weather
operations.
“Multiple modern safety systems on aircraft will be deemed unusable causing a
much larger problem than what we knew … Airplane manufacturers have informed us
that there are huge swaths of the operating fleet that may need to be
indefinitely
grounded.”
The airlines urged action to ensure “5G is deployed except when towers are too
close to airport runways until the FAA can determine how that can be safely
accomplished without catastrophic disruption”.
On Sunday, the FAA said it had cleared an estimated 45% of US commercial
airplanes to perform low-visibility landings at many airports where 5G C-band
will be deployed starting on Wednesday.
The warning follows previous alerts that Medevac helicopters or the aircraft
that hospitals and rescue missions may also be affected by the technology.
According to a Bloomberg report, 5G interference on radio altimeters on
emergency helicopters could ground operations. The 5G will not necessarily shut
down the altimeter, but could cause it to give inaccurate readings.
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