An experienced air traffic controller retired just days after his radar failed as planes flew into New York airspace, according to The New York Times.
The fault meant the Philadelphia-based Newark Liberty International Airport controller lost radar imagery for around a minute and a half on Aug. 27 last year, people who were in the control center told the publication.
The issue was reportedly caused by a third-party technician’s mistake, after they accidentally remotely cut a data feed.
The controller, who was supposed to be monitoring half a dozen planes at the time, then reverted to memory to try and direct pilots he still had radio contact with, three people familiar with the incident told The Times.
“Attention all aircraft. Radar contact is lost. Radar contact is lost,” he barked over the system, according to an audio recording.
Days later, the decades-long veteran retired, sources added.
Two people with knowledge of the incident said that after a nervy wait, the radar returned. At that point one of the planes was in LaGuardia‘s airspace, flying over the Hudson River.
The Federal Aviation Authority blamed “data transmission issues” in an unrelated regional system for delays at Newark days later.
Flight data from Newark, rather than being sent straight to Philadelphia, is routed via Westbury in New York.
Dave Spero, president of Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, said that the data took longer to load because it had to travel further.
“It caused what they call a cascade failure with target freezing,” Mr. Spero said. His comment refers to the radar dots that represent planes freezing on screen because of the lag. This happened several times, according to FAA logs viewed by The Times.
Spero said that “the communication lines that feed the Newark sector, which resides in Philadelphia, are failing.” He blamed contractors, not the FAA.
The Aug. 2024 incident was followed by another one late last month. For more than 90 seconds, planes were flying completely blind into Newark Liberty International Airport, after another communications blackout.
The incident on April 28 shook up the on-duty controllers so much that some were placed on “trauma leave.”
An air traffic controller in the room during the outage told CNN: “It was just by the grace of God that there wasn‘t another plane in its way. We all expected what happened in D.C. to happen here.”
The Times reported that the controller started panicking after his radar dropped, but some of his colleagues still had a visual feed. Their radios, however, went dead.
They frantically called colleagues in New York and urged them to keep air traffic away from Newark. They waited anxiously for 30 seconds until the comms dip subsided.
One controller reportedly found a trainee shaking in the hallway of the command center. They had been directing air traffic, under supervision, just moments earlier.
Staffers taking sick leave because of the stress has hit the already struggling workforce.
The FAA says it has 22 certified Newark controllers in Philadelphia and almost the same number of trainees. However, sources told The Times that only 16 certified controllers are currently available daily, half of what’s needed to handle the 80-plus hourly departures and landings. Controllers in Newark also handle the traffic at some nearby regional airports.
President Donald Trump has blamed former transport secretary Pete Buttigieg and former president Joe Biden for the issues despite them happening on his administration’s watch.
“Air Traffic problems caused by the incompetent Biden Administration, as headed by, in this case, a total novice and political hack, Pete B. I WILL FIX IT!!!” he wrote on Truth Social Wednesday.
Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy is set to announce his all-new, state-of-the-art air traffic control infrastructure plan Thursday.
When the Daily Beast asked the FAA for a comment, the agency directed us to a statement from Wednesday that stated Duffy and his department are “taking immediate steps to improve the reliability of operations” at the airport.
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