Everything we know about airport where air traffic controllers lost radar twice in two weeks

For the second time in two weeks, air traffic controllers at a major US airport lost their radar communications with planes for about 90 seconds.

Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey has been the center of anxiety over air travel safety and frustration over flight cancelations and delays after both radar blackouts, outdated systems, runway construction and closures, and controllers taking trauma leave.

The latest radar outage, on Friday morning, signified that the woes at Newark airport are far from over. The airport stands as an unfortunate example of what can go wrong with the US’s aging air traffic control system, which President Donald Trump aims to revamp.

Here is everything we know about the scary incidents at Newark airport and what to expect moving forward.

What happened at Newark airport?

At 3.55am on Friday, a Philadelphia International Airport control center that manages air traffic for Newark airport 90 miles away experienced a ‘telecommunications outage’ that caused radar screens to go dark for 90 seconds, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Traffic was light at that time, and what could have turned into a midair disaster was avoided.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Metro on what happened and if flight cancelations and delays are expected to continue.

It was terrifyingly similar to an incident on April 28, in which air traffic controllers at the Philadelphia facility were ‘unable to see, hear, or talk to’ planes going into and out of Newark airport for 60 to 90 seconds, according to National Air Traffic Controllers Association spokesperson Galen Munroe.

Should travelers be worried about safety at Newark airport?

The FAA insists Newark airport is safe and that staff are ‘slowing the rate of arrivals into the airport’ – which is contributing to delays and cancelations. As of Friday evening, there were 141 cancelations at Newark airport and 461 delays, according to FlightAware.

Hassan Shahidi, president CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation, insisted that air traffic controllers and the FAA ‘never compromise safety’.

‘If a facility is understaffed, it will certainly reduce capacity but not compromise safety,’ he stated.

“We have controllers that are trained and doing their jobs well. We have pilots that are trained and they’re doing their jobs very well. And so from that perspective, we do not see an issue.

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