By JOSH FUNK
The air site visitors controllers directing planes into the Newark, New Jersey, airport briefly misplaced their radar Friday morning for the second time in two weeks, renewing issues concerning the nation’s growing older air site visitors management system that President Donald Trump desires to overtake.
The Federal Aviation Administration mentioned the radar on the facility in Philadelphia that directs planes out and in of Newark airport went black for 90 seconds at 3:55 a.m. Friday. That’s just like what occurred on April 28.
That first radar outage led to a whole bunch of flights being canceled or delayed on the Newark airport previously two weeks after the FAA slowed down site visitors on the airport to make sure security. 5 controllers additionally went on trauma depart after that outage, worsening the current scarcity. It’s not clear if any extra controllers will go on depart now.
The variety of cancellations and delays spiked after the FAA restricted site visitors at Newark and has remained excessive since then. The FAA plans to speak with all of the airways that fly out of Newark about reducing their schedules whereas the staffing and know-how points persist.
The variety of cancellations Friday morning was down round 40 departures and arrivals, however elevated after the radar outage and a disruption associated to ongoing runway building. By the top of the day 68 departures and arrivals had been canceled in Newark, and greater than 400 delays have been reported.
White Home Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt mentioned in a briefing Friday that the “glitch this morning at Newark” was attributable to the identical points as final week.
The most recent Newark issues reinforce the necessity for the multi-billion-dollar plan Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy introduced Thursday to interchange the nation’s growing older air site visitors management system, Leavitt mentioned. The plan is designed to stop such issues from taking place and provides controllers fashionable know-how. Greater than 4,600 new high-speed connections can be put in and 618 radars would get replaced throughout the nation.
Officers developed the plan to improve the system after a lethal midair collision in January between a passenger jet and an Military helicopter killed 67 folks within the skies over Washington, D.C. A number of different crashes this 12 months additionally put strain on officers to behave.
However the shortcomings of the air site visitors management system have been recognized for many years. The Nationwide Transportation Security Board has not decided that an issue with the air site visitors management system precipitated that crash close to Reagan Nationwide Airport.
These radar outages in such a crowded airspace are alarming as a result of seconds matter, however Allied Pilots Affiliation spokesman Capt. Dennis Tajer mentioned “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 mentioned. “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 motion is to proceed on their last-directed path, but when the outage continues, pilots will begin broadcasting their place to each different airplane within the space — very like pilots do at small airports that don’t have a management tower.
“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. And the region is short — and this is a big deal. The region is short about 40 air traffic controllers,” Gottheimer mentioned. He mentioned the tower was constructed again in “the Brady Bunch era” in 1973.
The FAA mentioned earlier this week that it’s putting in new fiber optic information strains to hold the radar sign between its amenities in Philadelphia and New York. Officers mentioned a few of the strains connecting these two amenities are outdated copper wire that might be changed. But it surely’s not clear how shortly these repairs could be accomplished.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York mentioned it’s vital that the FAA get the issues affecting the Newark airport fastened shortly.
“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 mentioned. “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.”
Initially Printed: Might 9, 2025 at 11:43 AM EDT
