For the second time in as many weeks, air traffic controllers (ATC) handling flights into and out of Newark Liberty International Airport (KEWR) were met with black screens, unable to see or talk to the aircraft under their watch. The incident is the latest in a worrying trend.
The FAA in a statement said controllers in Area C of the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility—who in July took over management of Newark’s airspace from a facility on Long Island, New York—lost communications and radar around 3:55 a.m. EDT on Friday. It said the disruption, which lasted about 90 seconds, was due to a telecommunications outage.
Radar data for Newark is processed at another FAA facility on Long Island and sent to the Philadelphia TRACON through copper telecommunications wiring, which the FAA has promised to upgrade with fiberoptic systems. A controller in Philadelphia told CNN that this feed was responsible for another 90-second outage on April 28 and has gone dark on at least two other occasions.
The April incident prompted several controllers to take mental health leave, leaving only 16 certified professional controllers (CPCs) on call at the facility, The New York Times reported.
U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Thursday unveiled the DOT’s “state-of-the-art” ATC modernization plan, which also calls for a switch to fiber optic among other updates. It would create 15 new towers colocated with TRACONs and six ATC centers, with radar and automation upgrades planned across the ATC system.
The plan—which Duffy said could be implemented within three to four years—has received broad support from major airline CEOs and unions representing controllers and pilots, including the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA). Duffy has asked for funding upfront, which could take the form of a $12.5 billion support package from Congress.
The DOT and FAA have also raised starting salaries and implemented cash bonuses to “supercharge” ATC hiring. President Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2026 “skinny” budget allocates further funding for that effort.
Controllers in Philadelphia, though, have warned of equipment and staffing issues for months. Alleviating those concerns is not a simple process.
No Simple Fix
Controller shortages have plagued the FAA dating back to the COVID-19 pandemic, when it slowed hiring and was hit with a wave of retirements. Estimates place the current shortage at about 3,000 controllers.
The ATC training process is rigorous and time-intensive, making it difficult to attract new hires. After graduating the ATC academy in Oklahoma City, for example, trainees often spend years in on-the-job training learning to manage a specific swath of airspace. Newark’s airspace is considered some of the most complex and difficult to manage.
Exacerbating the staffing issues further is antiquated technology. Per a March Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on FAA ATC systems, 105 out of 138 were deemed “unsustainable” or “potentially unsustainable.” Duffy and other officials have decried the use of floppy disks and copper wiring.
These issues recently came to a head at the Newark airport, which in the past two weeks has delayed or canceled more than 1,000 flights. The FAA said it is slowing activity at the airport and pledged to upgrade technology and boost staffing at the Philadelphia facility. But controllers have had equipment issues for months.
Understaffed and Unequipped
The problems date back to the FAA’s decision to transfer responsibility for Newark airspace from the New York TRACON (N90) to Philadelphia. The agency cited staffing shortages at N90, which also manages flights into and out of La Guardia (KLGA) and Kennedy International (KJFK), as the reason for the move. NATCA decried the relocation of several N90 controllers, who began working in Philadelphia on July 28.
Almost immediately, controllers began anonymously reporting issues to NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System.
In July, a controller said they received only a short, verbal briefing from the FAA before their first shift managing Newark airspace from Philadelphia. The briefing failed to mention a change in the way personnel input handoffs, which they said “could absolutely result in a controller failing to input a handoff in a timely manner.”
“The FAA should be utterly ashamed of themselves for failing to properly brief controllers about this change,” the controller wrote. “They took a position that essentially said ‘nothing is changing’ so that they could accomplish the move with as little resistance as possible. Make no mistake, this is a major change. Not having the EWR controllers in the same room as us is a significant detriment to safety and efficiency.”
Two other reports in July raised concerns about communication between controllers in New York and Philadelphia.
Those gaps may have caused a near miss. In August, a controller at N90 said a communications breakdown with Philadelphia caused both facilities to vector aircraft around a thunderstorm on the same heading and altitude.
“The fact that there was no catastrophic mid air collision is nothing short of luck,” the controller said. “The air traffic operation is inherently less safe…I recommend the EWR Area be relocated back to N90 from PHL. It is the only way to fix the many safety hazards that are attributed to splitting apart this air traffic operation.”
Another controller wrote in August: “This has caused an extremely dangerous situation in the extremely complicated NYC area airspace. The former EWR area needs to be moved back to the NY TRACON.”
The New York Times reported that on August 27, a controller at the Philadelphia TRACON lost radar for about 90 seconds after a mistake by a third-party technician, forcing them to guide half a dozen aircraft by memory. The controller retired days later.
The following month, a radar outage delayed departures at Newark by an average of 105 minutes. On November 6, according to ATC audio, personnel monitoring Newark “lost all frequencies and communications,” causing the airspace to close for nearly one hour. Controllers and pilots could be heard scrambling to restore communications.
“I just had about five sectors in my ear all at once, and they all had radio failure and they’re turning every plane in the sky,” said a controller in the tower at Teterborough Airport (KTEB) in New Jersey. “I have no idea.”
After systems came back online, a controller managing approaches to Newark asked: “Listen up everybody real careful—anybody besides United 1560, 1043, or 2192, is there anybody else that can hear me on this frequency?”
Months later, the issue still exists. According to NATCA, Philadelphia TRACON controllers on April 28 “temporarily lost radar and communications with the aircraft under their control, unable to see, hear, or talk to them.”
“We don’t have a radar so I don’t know where you are,” a controller responded to a United pilot requesting clearance to enter Newark airspace, instructing them to squawk VFR.
After yet another outage on Friday, the FAA implemented another ground delay for Newark, citing weather as the main factor and staffing as an additional constraint. Some arrivals are delayed more than four hours.
The FAA and DOT are taking steps to address the problem. But those fixes will take time, which could portend further disruptions and reduced activity at Newark.
