Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 13
Time Pressure; Confusion; Communication Breakdown; Troubleshooting
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Illness / Injury
Air Traffic Control Provided Assistance
ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings
The landlines in San Juan CERAP have been OTS for way too long.  I can't even remember how long.  Every time we get in contact with MSDS; SVMI or TNCC it is actually a success.  Aircraft X declared a medical emergency as it was approaching Santo Domingo airspace (MDSD).  A patient with a heart attack.  Luckily we got the coordination done in time.  However; later on the pilot advised that the patient had died and the pilot needed to deviate for weather.  This was the time when we could not communicate with MDSD to forward this information.  Consider the situation.  I needed to expedite the flight; but I could not accomplish the coordination.  Usually you would hold this aircraft in your airspace until coordination is done; but I will not hold the aircraft.  This almost gave me a deviation; but after many attempts; we got MSDS on the line when the aircraft was about 10 mile from their airspace.FAA needs to seriously work on these landlines.
Aircraft X had a medical emergency; an 85 year old man with a possible heart attack.  Due to the MEVA landline outage it took overly long time to coordinate with MDSD ARTCC the information and updated info and weather deviations for this flight.  It made for a VERY dangerous situation and we were handcuffed from providing the best possible service to this situation.  The passenger died before reaching the airport at MDSD.Get the landlines fixed before more people die!
Two ZSU controllers report of on going problem where they could not reach another facility via land line to advise the Controller of a medical emergency.