Ageing equipment, stressed out controllers and gridlocked skies - is this a recipe for disaster? Equinox takes a nail biting look at New York’s air traffic controllers, their equipment and the lessons they’ve learnt from the disasters of the past. The skies around New York are under intense pressure and near misses are on the increase. Each year the volume of passenger air traffic rises and the job of policing the congested skies gets harder, and more complex. From inside New York’s TRACON (Terminal Radar Approach Control) controllers contend with pilots who don’t speak English, ‘cowboys" flying Cessna’s and computers that regularly crash. The tension is always high, one mistake could spell disaster and the threat of a mid air collision haunts them every working day.