Air traffic controllers for Newark airport briefly lose radar access
again
[May 10, 2025]
By JOSH FUNK
The air traffic controllers directing planes into the Newark, New
Jersey, airport briefly lost their radar Friday morning for the second
time in two weeks, renewing concerns about the nation's aging air
traffic control system that President Donald Trump wants to overhaul.
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.
That first radar outage led to hundreds of flights being canceled or
delayed at the Newark airport in the past two weeks after the FAA slowed
down traffic at the airport to ensure safety. Five controllers also went
on trauma leave after that outage, worsening the existing shortage. It’s
not clear if any additional controllers will go on leave now.
The number of cancellations and delays spiked after the FAA limited
traffic at Newark and has remained high since then. The FAA said Newark
is one of the most delay-prone airports in the nation right now. In
addition to all the technical and staffing challenges, an ongoing runway
construction project is adding to the disruptions.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a briefing Friday
that the “glitch this morning at Newark” was caused by the same issues
as last week.
The latest Newark problems reinforce the need for the
multibillion-dollar plan Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced
Thursday to replace the nation’s aging air traffic control system,
Leavitt said. The plan is designed to prevent such problems from
happening and give controllers modern technology. More than 4,600 new
high-speed connections would be installed and 618 radars would be
replaced across the country.
Officials developed the plan to upgrade the system after a deadly midair
collision in January between a passenger jet and an Army helicopter
killed 67 people in the skies over Washington, D.C. Several other
crashes this year also put pressure on officials to act.
But the shortcomings of the air traffic control system have been known
for decades. The National Transportation Safety Board has not determined
that a problem with the air traffic control system caused the crash near
Reagan National Airport.
There has been an average of 34 arrival cancellations per day since mid
April at Newark, and the FAA said the number of delays increases
throughout the day from an average of five in the mornings to 16 by the
evening. They tend to last 85 to 137 minutes on average.
The FAA said the airport clearly cannot handle its current traffic, so
it will propose cutting arrivals and departures to 28 each per hour
until the runway construction is complete, and 34 per hour after the
main runway project is completed, although some work will continue on
the weekends.
The FAA scheduled a formal meeting with all the airlines that fly out of
Newark on Wednesday and Thursday of next week to talk about cutting
their schedules while the staffing and technology issues persist.
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Fog covers planes and control towers at Newark Liberty International
Airport in Newark, N.J., Monday, May 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
These radar outages in such a crowded airspace are alarming because
seconds matter, but Allied Pilots Association spokesman Capt. Dennis
Tajer said “it’s not an impending disaster that some are
suggesting.”
“The system is wired to run really well when everything’s
functioning. But the most important part is that it’s prepared to
function when things go wrong,” Tajer said. “Even when it sounds
frightening, know that the air traffic controllers and the pilots
have training and we go to that.”
When pilots lose contact with controllers their first action is to
continue on their last-directed path, but if the outage continues,
pilots will start broadcasting their position to every other plane
in the area — much like pilots do at small airports that don’t have
a control tower.
U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer blamed the problems that have plagued
Newark on the lack of proper air traffic controller staffing and
modern technology.
“Our region is a key economic artery for our country. Yet this
region ... one of the busiest air spaces in the world, as I
mentioned, is running off a tower that’s full of copper wire dating
back to the 1980s with outdated and inefficient technology,”
Gottheimer said. He said the tower was built back in “the Brady
Bunch era” in 1973.
The FAA said it currently has 24 air traffic controllers assigned to
handle the Newark traffic, but it wants to have 38. And now several
of those are on leave. Plus, 16 of the controllers currently working
in Philadelphia are only assigned there temporarily through July
2026 as part of the facility’s move from New York that it made last
summer. So the FAA is working to quickly certify as many of the 26
trainees currently working in Philadelphia as possible.
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 that will
be replaced. But it's not clear how quickly those repairs can be
completed.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York said it's important that the FAA
get the problems affecting the Newark airport fixed quickly.
“Enough is enough. The connection between New York air space and the
Philadelphia air traffic control center must be fixed now. The
backup system that is not working must be fixed. Now," Schumer said.
"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.”
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