Newark airport, one of the main hubs serving the New York City area, suffered another blackout of its air traffic control system, early on Friday morning, according to US aviation regulators – the second in recent weeks of disrupted flights that have become a major concern for passengers.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said that a key air traffic control facility in Philadelphia that guides aircraft in and out of Newark Liberty international airport in New Jersey had a malfunction.
The FAA said the radar at the facility went black for 90 seconds at 3.55am on Friday – an event that is similar to an communications breakdown on 28 April that led to hundreds of flights being cancelled or delayed at the airport over the last two weeks. Such a situation is rare and automatically sparks grave concern from the industry and regulators.
The latest failure comes a day after the US transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, announced a full modernization of creaky US air traffic control systems within four years, including replacing radio and surveillance systems with modern technology.
“We are on it. We are going to fix it. We are going to build a brand new system for all of you and your families and the American people,” Duffy said on Thursday.
The FAA said earlier this week that it is installing new fiber optic data lines to carry the radar signal between its facilities in Philadelphia and New York. Officials said some of the lines connecting those two facilities are outdated copper wire.
There were 320 delays and 137 cancellations reported at Newark, according to the flight tracking site FlightAware, as of 12.15pm on Friday.
After the latest outage affecting Newark, one the nation’s busiest airports, the FAA said in a statement: “There was a telecommunications outage that impacted communications and radar display at Philadelphia TRACON Area C, which guides aircraft in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport airspace.”
“The outage occurred around 3.55am on Friday, May 9, and lasted approximately 90 seconds,” it added.
Separately, the regulator issued a ground stop at the airport, due to construction, that was in effect until mid-morning on Friday.
Josh Gottheimer, Democrat congressman of New Jersey, said the second outage was “big news”.
“Travelers have had it with the delays. I’ve heard from a lot of them. They’re calling me, they’re talking to me. You see them posting about the delays, about the cancellations,” Gottheimer told reporters at Newark airport on Friday, according to Fox Business.
Gottheimer added that travelers “are frustrated about and angry about and concerned about is because right now, the airport simply lacks the FAA tower staffing levels, modern technology and infrastructure that we need to make sure that this airspace, the busiest airspace in the world, runs efficiently, smoothly and safely, 24/7”.
Last week’s outage, which occurred in the afternoon, left controllers with no way to communicate with pilots. Several were reportedly so distressed that they took a leave of absence, further snarling air traffic operations.
After Friday’s blackout, publicly available communications between air traffic control and pilots revealed an exchange with the pilot of a FedEx flight bound for Boston, who was advised to switch radio frequency.
“FedEx 1989, I’m going to hand you off here, our scopes just went black again,” the controller said. “If you care about this, contact your airline and try to get some pressure for them to fix this stuff.”
“Sorry to hear about that, FedEx 1989,” the pilot said. “I’m switching, good luck guys.”
The Associated Press contributed reporting
