Radar Screens Went Dark at Newark Airport Again — This Time for Even Longer
Seth Wenig/AP
Air traffic controllers responsible for the planes approaching Newark Liberty International Airport lost radar again Friday.
The airport — one of the busiest in the country — has been plagued by major delays and cancellations throughout much of the last two weeks as a result of ATC staffing issues. Making matters even worse was an April 28 incident in which controllers briefly lost radar for 30 seconds and couldn’t see the planes they were communicating with. As a result, several air traffic controllers took trauma leave, thus exacerbating staffing issues even further and causing more delays.
The issue got so bad at Newark’s airport that United Airlines — which uses the airports of one of its hubs — advised customers to avoid it altogether and use other airports in the area.
On Friday, the FAA confirmed that air traffic controllers suffered an outage Friday that was three times as long as the first one. According to reporting from the Associated Press, “The Federal Aviation Administration said the radar at the facility in Philadelphia that directs planes in and out of Newark airport went black for 90 seconds at 3:55 a.m. Friday. That’s similar to what happened on April 28.”
After the first outage, five air traffic controllers took trauma leave, worsening the already short-staffed operation at the airport. Elon Musk’s DOGE made headlines earlier in the year for offering buyouts to all air traffic controllers, before trying to rehire them all back.
