90-second Newark blackout exposes parlous state of US air traffic control
- Reference: 1746630074
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/05/07/newark_airport_outage/
- Source link:
Operators were [1]reportedly in tears, with one experiencing heart palpitations, during the brief blackout on April 28. The outage was [2]apparently down to a single unsheathed copper wire shorting out equipment at the ATC facility located to the southwest in Philadelphia. Flyers are now advised to avoid the busy transport hub if at all possible.
Around 20 percent of the staff have either resigned or taken sick leave due to stress. As a result, flights in and out of Newark have slowed to give those remaining a chance to ensure landing schedules are safe.
[3]
"Air traffic controllers in Area C of the Philadelphia TRACON (PHL), who are responsible for separating and sequencing aircraft in and out of Newark Airport (EWR), temporarily lost radar and communications with the aircraft under their control, unable to see, hear, or talk to them," a National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) spokesperson said in a statement on Monday.
[4]
[5]
Since the incident, more than a thousand flights have been canceled or delayed and there's no indication the airport will return to normal operations any time soon. United Airlines has canceled 35 routes that use the airport and CEO Scott Kirby expressed frustration in an open letter to customers.
"It's disappointing to make further cuts to an already reduced schedule at Newark, but since there is no way to resolve the near-term structural FAA staffing issues, we feel like there is no other choice in order to protect our customers," [6]he said .
[7]
"These challenges are not new to Newark. United has been urging the US government for years to use its authority to effectively limit the number of flights to what the airport can realistically handle. Past failure to make those changes had led to the circumstances that United and, most importantly, our customers now face."
[8]Datacenters near Heathrow seemingly stay up as substation fire closes airport
[9]US airspace closures, lack of answers deepen East Coast drone mystery
[10]TSA's airport facial-recog tech faces audit probe
[11]Airbus A380 flew for 300 hours with meter-long tool left inside engine
Upwards of 20 million people pass through Newark every year, and the fact the 12th busiest airport in America can lose all communication with aircraft is alarming, both for those in the air and on the ground. But decades of underfunding have left the air traffic control system in a terrible state.
And then there's the human factor. Air traffic controllers face one of the highest-stress jobs on the planet, where one slip could kill hundreds of people, and are subject to a mandatory retirement age of 56 – although this can be stretched to 60 in some cases.
Last week, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced measures to address the shortfall. New recruits will get enhanced bonuses and qualified controllers who remain employed beyond the age of 56 will get an annual bonus of 20 percent of their salary.
"This new recruitment award and retention incentive program is a meaningful step toward addressing the ongoing staffing shortages in air traffic control across the National Airspace System," [12]said NATCA president Nick Daniels.
[13]
"We thank [Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy] for his commitment to recruiting and retaining the best and brightest in the air traffic control profession and look forward to working with the Department of Transportation and the FAA on controller staffing, safety improvements, and the modernization of air traffic control systems and improvements to facility infrastructure." ®
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[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-06/curses-and-tears-newark-airport-s-chilling-90-second-blackout
[2] https://nypost.com/2025/05/05/us-news/newark-air-traffic-controllers-lost-radar-and-comms-for-90-seconds-in-horrifying-faa-outage/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aBuDn0Bn7zjH6q00VzF0cAAAA4g&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aBuDn0Bn7zjH6q00VzF0cAAAA4g&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aBuDn0Bn7zjH6q00VzF0cAAAA4g&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.united.com/en/aw/newsroom/announcements/cision-125381?irgwc=1&clickid=X0eXboVvcxyKUJTxXG1YwVmvUksW2qXU61wI2U0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aBuDn0Bn7zjH6q00VzF0cAAAA4g&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/21/heathrow_closure_datacenter_resilience/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/17/mystery_drone_sightings/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/03/tsa_facial_recognition_audit/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/15/tool_found_in_a380_engine/
[12] https://www.natca.org/2025/05/01/natca-faa-reach-agreement-on-incentive-program-to-improve-air-traffic-controller-recruitment-and-retention/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aBuDn0Bn7zjH6q00VzF0cAAAA4g&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Painfully similar...
"The outage was apparently down to a single unsheathed copper wire shorting out equipment at the ATC facility located to the southwest in Philadelphia."
"With the bare end of the old wire lying near to the terminal which had once been its home and with the other end still being connected to the fuse, there existed a potential for disaster... That potential was tragically realised when other work came to be done in the same relay room two Sundays later on the eve of the accident"
That second quote is from Anthony Hidden QC's Investigation into the Clapham Junction Railway Accident, which occurred on 12 December 1988 killing 35 people, and injuring 484, 69 seriously.
Have people not learned in the intervening 37 years that bare wires and safety critical systems are not a good combination?
A slightly more detailed news article
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/06/us/inside-the-multi-day-meltdown-at-newark-airport
Some wildass speculation from me follows, so take it for what it's worth.
As far as I can see, the controllers operate out of Philly but the radar and comms are located in Westbury. And judging by the loss of radar and comms the tx/rx and antennas are also remote in Westbury. On the same connection, which seems dumb. But whatever, the backup link is there to cover that. But it looks like the backup link or systems took 90 seconds to fail over or recognize they were on the backup link. Eeek!
Assuming the planes are arriving into Newark airspace, asking for Bravo clearance means they are outside the Bravo airspace, i.e. not about to imminently land, and also the airport tower has it's own VHF locally, so again suggest this was for planes a fair bit out. But they are doing 400 knots and more, 400 knots is about 675 feet per second so those planes have moved 60,000 feet in 90 seconds or about 11.5 statute miles.
The only saving grace is likely they were already being sequenced and air traffic controllers have phenomenal spatial awareness of their air space and likely set everyone on divergent headings and altitudes and had nearby airports take control of any planes that they could see or communicate with. But yeah, high stress I bet.
The comment that fiber would have solved it is asinine, whether the copper breaks or fiber breaks, or the rack that contains the equipment is blown by a live wire, redundancy is they key point, and running radar data and comms on the same connection seems to me to be asking for trouble and then a 90 second cutover is not optimal, I'd be taking a magnifying glass and a rectal probe to that system and asking some urgent questions.
A job that burns up people
I've seen a movie about air traffic controllers that sums up the job pretty nicely.
One of the air traffic controllers could not come near the building anymore without breaking down and run. Even though he desperately wanted to get in again.
US air traffic controll has been lingering without adequate funding, adequate staffing, adequate salaries, and adequate equipment.
Clearly a target for DOGE "attention".
One more reason not to fly to the US in the foreseeable future.