The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday announced emergency upgrades to Newark Liberty International Airport's air traffic control systems following a radar and communications failure that caused widespread delays and grounded flights for over a week. The breakdown, which an air traffic controller called "the most dangerous situation you could have," forced United Airlines to cancel 35 round-trip flights daily and prompted multiple controllers to take trauma leave.
The FAA said it will increase staffing, replace outdated copper lines with fiberoptic connections, and install three high-bandwidth links between New York and Philadelphia to reduce the risk of another outage. "When staffing or equipment issues occur, the FAA will ensure safety by slowing the rate of arrivals into the airport," the agency said.
On April 28, controllers at the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON)-responsible for Newark's traffic since July 2023-lost radar and radio contact with at least 15 to 20 flights for roughly 60 to 90 seconds. "I don't want to say panic because panic isn't the right word, but it was hectic," said one controller, who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity.
The failure was linked to a single data feed that connects radar systems in Westbury, New York, to Philadelphia. "It basically doesn't have redundancy," the controller said. The FAA's technology, described as "incredibly old" by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, includes floppy disks and relies on copper wire infrastructure.
Duffy added on Friday, "The system that we're using is not effective to control the traffic that we have in the airspace today." The FAA now plans to deploy a temporary backup system in Philadelphia and establish a dedicated STARS radar hub to prevent reliance on New York data streams.
Five FAA employees-including three controllers, one supervisor, and one trainee-have taken 45 days of trauma leave since the incident, according to the controller. "This stuff takes a toll on you, especially when we keep saying this is going to happen again," he said.
The incident reignited scrutiny over the FAA's decision to move Newark approach control from Long Island to Philadelphia without first ensuring adequate system redundancies. "It's unclear why the Biden-era FAA didn't implement at least some of these redundancies before moving control," wrote Axios' Alex Fitzpatrick.
Controller conversations captured on LiveATC.net highlighted the severity of the moment. One aviation source compared the outage to driving blindfolded through traffic. "When you're a controller, you want to be in control. When you take that away, it can be very traumatic," said Colin Scoggins, a retired FAA military specialist.
Aviation analyst Miles O'Brien said, "The controllers... perform quiet heroic acts, in spite of a system that is built to set them up for failure." FAA officials have not confirmed how long it will take to complete the announced upgrades, but Secretary Duffy committed on May 2 to building a new air traffic control system nationwide to address aging infrastructure.
