The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the United States has reported a second radar outage for the airport in Newark, New Jersey, in less than two weeks.
The incident raises continuing questions about the state of air traffic control in the US, increasing the pressure on the administration of President Donald Trump to address aviation safety.
On Friday, the FAA reported that, around 3:55am local time (07:55 GMT), a facility in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, lost its telecommunications signal for about 90 seconds, preventing it from monitoring communications and radar signals for the Newark Liberty International Airport.
A recording reviewed by the news agency Reuters captured some of the frustration amid the outage.
“FedEx 1989, I’m going to hand you off here. Our scopes just went black again,” a controller told the pilot for a shipping flight.
“If you care about this, contact your airline and try to get some pressure for them to fix this stuff.”
This was the second time a 90-second outage was reported for Newark, a major air terminal that serves metropolitan areas like New York City.
On April 28, a similar incident occurred, resulting in hundreds of delays and dozens of diverted flights. Five air-traffic controllers also went on leave after the incident, using a federal law that allows them to take time off after traumatic incidents.
In the wake of Friday’s incident, The Associated Press reported that delays and cancellations at Newark were also up, citing statistics from the website FlightAware.com.
The White House briefly addressed the second outage at its daily news briefing with journalists, pledging upgrades in the coming months.
“There was a glitch in the system this morning, especially at Newark airport,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
“That glitch was caused by the same telecoms and software issues that were raised last week. Everything went back online after the brief outage, and there was no operational impact.”
Leavitt added that the FAA and the Department of Transportation would “address this technical issue tonight to prevent further outages”.
While every second matters in aviation, industry insiders say air traffic controllers and pilots have training to handle outages, to minimise the dangers.
“The system is wired to run really well when everything’s functioning. But the most important part is that it’s prepared to function when things go wrong,” Captain Dennis Tajer of the Allied Pilots Association told The Associated Press.
“Even when it sounds frightening, know that the air traffic controllers and the pilots have training, and we go to that.”
The latest outage, however, has heightened scrutiny on the Trump administration, which has seen several high-profile aviation mishaps since taking office in January.
On January 29, nine days into Trump’s second term, a mid-air collision took place over the Potomac River near Washington, DC, killing everyone on board both aircraft: an American Airlines passenger jet and a military Black Hawk helicopter.
Trump initially suggested that diversity initiatives under his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, were to blame for the crash, though he offered no evidence to substantiate that claim.
Later, in February, his administration faced criticism for cutting hundreds of FAA personnel, as part of its crackdown on alleged waste in the federal government.
Critics, however, warned that air traffic control and related jobs were understaffed, raising the likelihood of mistakes and malfunctions. Some of the affected positions included airline safety inspectors and maintenance mechanics.
US Congress member Josh Gottheimer, who represents a district in New Jersey, released a statement earlier this week calling for an increase in staffing at the FAA, framing the issue as a question of aviation safety.
“I am demanding that the Trump Administration add more air traffic controllers to cover Newark Airport to immediately help reduce shortages — and pay all the workers accordingly,” Gottheimer wrote.
“The bottom line is that this isn’t a partisan issue — it’s a matter of public safety. It’s about fixing a system that needs fixing.”
Trump officials, meanwhile, have slammed past administrations for doing too little to update the existing air traffic control systems.
Earlier this week, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced he would lead a modernisation of those systems, including the replacement of copper cables with fibre optics and replacing older radars and radios.
“Building this new system is an economic and national security necessity, and the time to fix it is now,” Duffy said in his news release.
But the project will likely require approval and funding from Congress, leaving its future up in the air.
