Air traffic controllers handling flights for Newark Liberty International Airport say frequent equipment outages have left them in a fearful state they describe as “plug and pray,” according to the New York Times.
The phrase, which controllers sarcastically use to articulate the anxiety they feel when they plug in their radio headsets at the start of their shifts, was revealed in a damning report about technical glitches in air traffic control technology at a Philadelphia tower that handles traffic for Newark.
The New Jersey airport has experienced a series of high-profile glitches this year. A 90-second radar blackout and a 30-second radio breakdown on April 28, along with other subsequent tech failings, have triggered safety concerns at Newark.
But the Times now reports that the problems at the Philadelphia tower are worse than the public previously knew, with controllers raising the alarm about equipment malfunctions since at least 2023.
The publication reported that on one overnight shift earlier this year, controllers for Newark noticed that phantom aircraft called “false targets” kept appearing on the radar. In another incident, controllers reported that the radio feed they use to communicate with pilots was hampered by static—they then found that a backup line was nonfunctional.
As part of a plan in the early 2000s to move Newark controllers from a site in Long Island, N.Y. to Philadelphia, new comms lines were laid in the ground. This is when the reliability of controllers’ radios started to slump, according to the Times.
“I think it’s important you’re made aware of how unreliable almost every EWR [Newark] frequency has become,” an air traffic control manager said in an email to a supervisor in February 2023, according to internal documentation seen by the paper.
“Undoubtedly, this is an issue of safety as our ability to reliably communicate with aircraft is central to our job,” they added.
The message was passed on to area managers who were said to have been concerned, but the issues persisted because the core issues were never fully fixed, according to the Times.
Problems reportedly worsened after the controllers moved from Newark to Philadelphia in July 2024. However, hundreds of issues remained unknown to the wider public. The Times reported that “300 unscheduled equipment outages or malfunctions” occurred between January 1 and June 1 of this year.
The issues ranged from mundane problems with equipment not directly related to flying operations, all the way up to radar systems completely tanking.
It was on April 12 that phantom planes began popping up on radar. That episode was followed by the headline-grabbing April 28 outage, and on May 1, controllers reported “trouble hearing pilots.”
The major outage at the end of April brought renewed attention to the failing systems at Newark. Three more public incidents followed in the weeks after, providing a huge headache for Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
Soon after, he announced plans to reduce the number of flights in and out of Newark to ease pressure on the system. He has said: “I think Newark is safe, I fly to that airport all the time.”
Duffy has also sought to add more air traffic controllers to the workforce, announcing new incentives and raising the retirement age. A budget recently passed by the House of Representatives includes $12.5 billion to renew the ageing systems.
The FAA told The Daily Beast that the agency has “been transparent with the public about the issues affecting Newark Liberty International Airport.”
“The agency is taking aggressive action to improve Newark operation,” it added. This work includes adding “high-bandwidth telecommunications connections,” replacing copper wire with fiber-optic cable, as well as training 22 new controllers, as Duffy stated.
Facilities will also be equipped with a temporary backup system that will be used during the switch to a “more reliable” fiber-optic network.
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