Newark Radar Goes Down Again

A radar display responsible for guiding aircraft in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport airspace briefly went offline on Friday.

The Federal Aviation Administration announced on social media that the outage occurred at 3:55 a.m. local time on Friday morning. The outage impacted communications and radar display at Philadelphia’s TRACON Area C and lasted approximately 90 seconds.

The outage comes shortly after Newark experienced over a week of disruptions due to ongoing issues with air traffic controller staffing, equipment failures and ongoing runway construction.

The blip in radar communications marks the second instance this month that technology troubles have impacted Newark air traffic control.

United CEO Scott Kirby claimed in a letter to employees last Friday that “over 20% of the FAA controllers for EWR walked off the job” recently.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association union stated on Monday that controllers did not walk off the job, but took an absence under the Federal Employees Compensation Act after temporarily losing radar communications with aircraft under their control.

During an announcement from Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to upgrade U.S. air traffic control systems on Thursday, Delta CEO Ed Bastian cited ongoing issues at Newark as one recent example of outdated systems bogging down American aviation.

“It’s hard to believe and, frankly, unacceptable that many of the systems our air traffic rely on today are more than 60 years old,” he said at the announcement, flanked by four other major airline CEOs. “It’s past time that we change that. So it’s an honor to be here today among so many of our industry partners while getting a first look at what the secretary has put forward.”

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