Staffing shortages also preceded the incident. The controllers themselves were exempt from the Trump administration's voluntary buyout of federal employees, an

Staffing shortages also preceded the incident. The controllers themselves were exempt from the Trump administration's voluntary buyout of federal employees, and from their across-the-board hiring freeze. But to actually hire a new controller requires so many special exemptions and waivers to cut through the hiring freeze, there's now a huge amount of friction and delay to onboard new people. And many of the support staff needed to recruit, train, test and medically certify new controllers are now gone, so the capacity to onboard thousands of new controllers just doesn't exist right now. And the overtime needed to pay experienced controllers to support noobs is now cancelled. And that ancient Philadelphia TRACON that failed because a copper wire burnt out? Approximately 400 of the PASS and NATCA level one techs who keep the surveillance radars, radio links, NAVAIDs and facility power maintained, repaired and supported were purged on Valentine's Day. A court eventually reinstated some of them, but the five-week delay before a court could countermand the inexplicable decisions of Trump and Musk set everything back. While the reinstated 132 PASS techs are back, hiring remains frozen for all the support categories (mechanics, telecom, aero‑info) because the public‑safety waiver applies only to controllers and ATSS. The pipeline is dry. The work order to fix the Philly TRACON was filed in December, but it couldn't get priority over the other five billion dollars of deferred maintenance and broken primary systems that are already hanging by a thread. The FAA's own internal dashboard (leaked to Reuters) shows unscheduled equipment downtime at New York‑metro facilities is up 38% in March‑April versus the same period in 2024.