Newark Airport radar screens terrifyingly go dark again — two weeks after outage wreaked havoc
Radar screens went down again at New Jersey’s troubled Newark Liberty International Airport early Friday — causing a fresh round of mass cancellations just two weeks after the same technical issue wreaked havoc at the major international hub.
The new outage was just before 4 a.m. and knocked out crucial communications for roughly 90 seconds, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) told The Post — at least as long on April 28. An almost identical scare also happened in November, according to CNN.
“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,” an FAA spokesperson said of the latest safety issue Friday.
Audio transmissions captured air traffic controllers alerting at least two incoming planes that the radar screens had gone dark.
In one recording, a controller could be heard telling a private jet en route from Cyprus that it should stay above 3,000 feet in case they lost touch during the descent.
Another controller was also reportedly overheard telling a FedEx pilot about the blackout issue.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many flights the blackout affected.
However, as of Friday afternoon, Newark had experienced the most canceled flights of any US airport, according to the flight tracking site FlightAware.
Some 66 of Newark’s departures had been canned, while 148 were delayed, the site showed.
Hundreds of flights have been canceled or delayed at Newark in the past two weeks as the airport grappled with the fallout from the first radar outage on April 28.
It comes as the Garden State airport continues to be plagued by flight delays and cancellations following the earlier saga that saw air traffic controllers lose communications with planes on April 28. That was initially thought to have lasted 30 seconds, but officials later said it could have been for 90 seconds, the same length as Friday’s repeat scare.
The FAA was quick to blame that meltdown on the physical failure of a telecommunications line, as well as a shortage of air traffic controllers at the airport and runway construction.
Several controllers also went on trauma leave in the wake of the initial outage — worsening the existing shortage.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told The Post Friday at her regular briefing that Friday’s glitch was caused by the same telecoms and software issues as the one late last month.
“This outage at Newark airport speaks to why the Secretary of Transportation [on Thursday] made a massive announcement in investing in our aviation safety, in our telecom system,” she said of Sean Duffy detailing a multi-billion-dollar plan to replace the nation’s aging air traffic control system.
“They want to replace the antiquated telecom systems with new fiber, wireless and satellite technologies, replace more than 600 radars, which have gone way past their lifecycle, and address runway safety. They want to build six new air traffic control centers for the first time since the 1960s and replace towers as well,” Leavitt continued.
“They want to implement new modern hardware and software for all traffic facilities to create a common platform system throughout the towers. These are much needed changes. This is a very bold plan by the Department of Transportation.”
The FAA has also vowed to accelerate fixes at the airport, including upgrading elements of the air traffic control operation.
The Philadelphia-based facility relies on radar data sent over lines from New York that may have failed, including some old copper phone lines.
The feds plan to replace those old wires with fiber optic cables and add three new data lines between New York and Philadelphia as part of the fix, as well as work to get additional controllers trained and certified.
It wasn’t immediately clear how long the upgrades would take, though Leavitt indicated the work would ideally be completed by the end of the summer.