A system outage on April 28 left air traffic controllers unable to see or communicate with aircraft arriving into Newark Liberty International Airport (KEWR) for more than a minute, contributing to widespread delays, staffing gaps, and a reduced flight schedule at the busy New Jersey hub.
The 90-second lapse in radar and radio contact occurred at the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control (Tracon) facility, which manages arrivals and departures at Newark. The disruption was reported by Bloomberg, citing anonymous sources familiar with the incident, and later confirmed by the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) and FAA. Multiple controllers were placed on trauma leave following the blackout, leaving the facility short-staffed during a week of cascading delays.
Yesterday, NATCA confirmed the incident, saying the facility “temporarily lost radar and communications with the aircraft under their control, unable to see, hear, or talk to them.”
The FAA released a statement about the outage, attributing the disruption to “antiquated” telecommunications infrastructure and describing ongoing efforts to create a more “resilient and redundant configuration with local exchange carriers.” The FAA statement referenced multiple outages, but did not specify additional dates.
“Frequent equipment and telecommunications outages can be stressful for controllers,” the agency noted, adding that some controllers had taken time off to recover from the cumulative strain of multiple recent outages.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who visited the Philadelphia Tracon alongside NATCA president Nick Daniels, has pledged upgrades to the agency’s equipment and automation systems. In a post to X, Duffy warned that similar outages could occur nationwide without urgent modernization. He has also unveiled new hiring incentives to address the agency’s shortage of qualified controllers.
The system disruptions and subsequent reduction in available staff have caused a ripple effect across the Northeast airspace. According to Bloomberg, United Airlines cut 35 daily round-trip flights at Newark in response. Flight operations into nearby airports, including Teterboro (KTEB), were also affected.
Industry associations have repeatedly warned that aging ATC infrastructure and understaffing pose growing risks to the National Airspace System. A 2023 FAA internal assessment found that more than three-quarters of ATC systems were “unsustainable or potentially unsustainable.”