The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed Friday that there was another air traffic control outage at Newark Liberty International Airport, the second in two weeks.
The FAA issued a ground stop at the airport after an outage occurred due to construction. In audio captured by LiveATC.net, an air traffic controller told a FedEx plane that "our scopes just went black again.”
“If you care about this, contact your airline and try to get some pressure for them to fix this stuff," the unidentified controller said.
Meanwhile, a controller informed a private aircraft of a brief radar outage and advised that if communication is lost again, the pilot should maintain an altitude at or above 3,000 feet until passing Morristown, after which they could proceed with the approach. Roughly 401 flights to and from Newark were delayed, with 140 canceled.
“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 FAA said. "The outage occurred around 3:55 a.m. on Friday, May 9, and lasted approximately 90 seconds.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said she was in touch with the Department of Transportation and monitoring the issue.
“As you all know, I spoke to the Department of Transportation. That glitch was caused by the same telecoms and software issues that were raised last week. Everything went back online after the brief outage, and there was no operational impact," Leavitt told reporters. “As you all know, I spoke to the Department of Transportation. That glitch was caused by the same telecoms and software issues that were raised last week. Everything went back online after the brief outage, and there was no operational impact.”
Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) demanded immediate action to fix the connection between New York airspace and the Philadelphia air traffic control center, calling it a safety emergency.
“Enough is enough. The connection between New York airspace and the Philadelphia air traffic control center must be fixed now. The backup system that is not working must be fixed,” Schumer said. “Now. This is an air travel safety emergency that requires immediate and decisive action, not a promise of a big, beautiful, unfunded overhaul that will take years to begin to implement. The skies over New York City are some of the busiest in the world. This cannot happen again.”
The incident comes just as flight schedules were beginning to stabilize following the initial equipment outage on April 28, which triggered a wave of delays and cancellations still affecting travelers.
On Thursday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy attributed the outage to an outdated air traffic control system. He announced that the Trump administration plans to modernize the system with six new air traffic control centers, upgraded telecommunications infrastructure at 4,600 sites, 2,500 new radios, and 618 replacement radars.
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