The White House National Economic Council director Brian Deese, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Federal Aviation Administration administrator Steve Dickson, and Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel have warned that a new 5 G service could cause US commerce to halt due to the introduction of a new 5 G service, according to a letter sent by the White House National Economic Council director Brian Deese, Federal Aviation Administration administrator Steve Dickson and Federal Communications Commission FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.
Unless our major hubs are cleared to fly, the vast majority of the traveling and shipping public will 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 that new C-Band 5 G technology could interfere with critical aircraft instruments such as radio altimeters that judge the distance from the ground to the bottom of the flying vessel and have an impact on low-visibility operations.
On a day like yesterday, more than 1,100 flights and 100,000 passengers would be subject to cancellations, diversions or delays, the letter cautioned, adding a call for urgent action to be taken.
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 January 4th, the group thanked Buttigieg, Dickson and Deese for reaching an agreement with AT&T and Verizon to delay their planned 5 G C-band deployment around certain airports and to commit to the proposed mitigations Safety is and always will be the top priority of US airlines, it said. We will work with all stakeholders to make sure that new 5 G service can coexist with aviation safely. As part of the agreement, AT&T and Verizon agreed on 3 January to create buffer zones around 50 US airports to reduce interference risks and take other measures to reduce interference for six months.
The agreement to delay the implementation of the technology to 19 January is about to expire. The airlines had requested that 5 G be implemented everywhere in the country except within the approximate 2 miles 3.2 km of airport runways at some key airports.
The letter stated that immediate intervention is needed to avoid major operational disruption to air passengers, shippers, supply chain and delivery of needed medical supplies.
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 fixed.
It's grounded. The airlines urged to take action to ensure 5 G 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 that it had cleared an estimated 45% of US commercial airplanes to perform low-visibility landings at many airports where 5 G C-band will be deployed starting on Wednesday.
According to a Bloomberg report, 5 G interference on radio altimeters on emergency helicopters could cause ground operations. The 5 G won't necessarily shut down the altimeter, but it could cause it to give inaccurate readings.