From early Friday morning, air traffic controllers at Newark Liberty International Airport experienced a catastrophic communications outage. At 0806, they lost radar and contact with the aircraft. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported that this outage began at approximately 3:55 a.m. ET, rendering controllers unable to communicate with pilots and leaving their radar screens dark.
Protecting public health is paramount. This incident should have never happened. That’s immediately following another nationwide meltdown on April 28 that caused historic disruptions to air travel. The recent outage occurred just hours after the Trump administration announced a comprehensive plan to overhaul the aging technology that underpins U.S. airspace safety. This timing begs the question—are our air traffic control systems reliable enough at this time to go full throttle into a new era of modernization?
During the Friday outage, controllers at the Philadelphia facility, responsible for guiding planes in and out of Newark, faced staffing challenges exacerbated by previous incidents. The April outage forced a number of controllers to leave from stress, further exacerbating already low levels of staffing. In response, the FAA issued a rare action to curb traffic heading into and out of Newark. Unfortunately, even those disruptions from this latest incident pale in comparison to the one we saw back in April.
The April incident resulted in major delays and stalled air travel for several days. Luckily, fewer aircraft fly during the night, which helped this morning not be quite as bedlam after Friday’s communication breakdown. The baggage issues on top of air traffic control’s continued challenges have pushed some in the airline industry and labor groups to raise the alarm. For one, back in February, they raised the alarm. The U.S. sorely needs at least $12 billion in emergency appropriations from Congress to address a growing staffing shortage and replace outdated and unsafe equipment.
The most recent outage brings a spotlight back on air traffic control’s nationwide system struggles. Controllers are responsible for safely guiding an ever-growing, more complex airspace with fixed budgets and resources. The Trump administration’s commitment to investing billions into updating the air traffic control system aims to alleviate these persistent problems.