Radar screens at New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport went dark early Friday morning during a close call that narrowly avoided becoming the nation’s latest midair tragedy.
The momentary power outage took place at 3:55am ET, when air traffic was luckily very light. The Federal Aviation Administration said the outage lasted for 90 seconds.
It’s the second radar blackout in two weeks at Newark. Another power outage struck the airport’s air traffic control tower on April 28, sending computer screens dark for 60 to 90 seconds.
Days after the April 28 incident, an air traffic controller at Newark Airport warned flyers to stay away from the New Jersey airport.
The unnamed source told NBC’s Tom Costello: ‘It’s not a safe situation for the flying public!’
‘Don’t fly into Newark. Avoid Newark at all costs,’ the air traffic controller added.
According to Flightaware, there were already 78 cancellations and 246 flight delays reported at Newark as of 11:30am ET.
Newark is the second-busiest airport in the New York-New Jersey area. Nearly 49 million people travelers used the airport in 2024, behind only New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport.
Radar screens at New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport went dark early Friday morning at 3:55am ET. It was the second momentary blackout in 2 weeks at the airport
Days after the April 28 incident, an air traffic controller at Newark Airport warned flyers to stay away from the New Jersey airport
The FAA released a statement on X Friday morning, revealing the blackout was caused by a “telecommunications outage” at Philadelphia TRACON Area C.
This control center at Philadelphia International Airport manages air traffic for Newark Airport and smaller airports nearby.
It guides planes landing and taking off, making sure they stay safe and on schedule. It was set up in July 2024 to help with Newark’s staffing problems at their old control center.
During the blackout Friday morning, air traffic controllers were reportedly overheard telling a FedEx cargo plane their radars screens were offline.
They allegedly told the plane’s pilots to put pressure on their company to help get the problems at Newark fixed.
A private jet was also reportedly told to stay above 3,000 feet because the air traffic controllers couldn’t guarantee that they’d be able to contact the plane during its descent for landing.
Friday’s radar blackout also happened just days after more than 20 percent of Newark’s tower controllers allegedly ‘walked off the job’ following the first power outage.
Officially, several of the air traffic controllers used their ‘trauma leave’ following the first radar blackout on April 28.
Newark Airport has been dealing with staffing storages, causing the airport to rely on a Philadelphia radar center for some of their flight data
Under the Federal Employees Compensation Act, government workers who experience work-related injuries or illnesses, including psychological trauma or stress-related conditions are able to take up to 45 days off at full pay.
However, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby accused the federal workers of causing even more problems following the power outage, including the grounding of hundreds of flights.
‘Unfortunately, the technology issues were compounded as over 20% of the FAA controllers for EWR walked off the job,’ Kirby said in a May 2 statement.
‘Keep in mind, this particular air traffic control facility has been chronically understaffed for years and without these controllers, it’s now clear – and the FAA tells us – that Newark airport cannot handle the number of planes that are scheduled to operate there in the weeks and months ahead,’ the CEO added.
