In recent days, we’ve heard about problems at Newark International Airport (EWR), whereby flights are experiencing major delays, largely attributed to air traffic control issues. The situation is so bad that United has even slashed nearly 10% of its schedule at the airport for the foreseeable future, in order to minimize operational impacts.
There’s now an interesting update, as we’re learning more about how air traffic controllers at the airport and in the surrounding airspace suffered full equipment outages, whereby they lost radar and radio contact with pilots. This is one of the main events that triggered the issues that we’ve seen in recent days.
In this post:
Newark ATC loses contact with pilots multiple times
We’re now learning more details about an event that happened on April 28, 2025, at Newark. Air traffic controllers responsible for flights to and from Newark (partly based in the Philadelphia TRACON) “temporarily lost radar and communications with the aircraft under their control, unable to see, hear, or talk to them,” according to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA). It’s believed that the full outage lasted for around 90 seconds, but it took a lot longer than that to recover.
VASAviation has an excellent video with air traffic control audio from one of these incidents. It’s really shocking to hear this audio, with pilots in some of the busiest airspace in the world suddenly being on their own. Huge kudos to the controllers and the pilots for how professionally they handled this situation.
What’s wild is that the above incident isn’t even the first time that this has happened. According to air traffic controllers, this has happened eight or nine times in recent months.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) even acknowledges that several controllers “have taken time off to recover from the stress of multiple recent outages,” further exacerbating the controller shortage. NATCA clarified that workers have been taking time off work under the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act, which “covers all federal employees that are physically injured or experience a traumatic event on the job.”
The FAA also states that “our antiquated air traffic control system is affecting our workforce,” and that they are “working to ensure the current telecommunications equipment is more reliable in the New York area by establishing a more resilient and redundant configuration with the local exchange carriers.”
FAA pledges to upgrade technology going forward
While there’s a lot of work to be done for Newark Airport to be fully functional and reliable again, the FAA has shared the steps that it’s taking to at least prevent these full outages in the future. The FAA acknowledges that airport issues stem from both airport runway construction, as well as staffing and technology issues.
When it comes to technology issues, the FAA claims to be taking immediate steps to improve the reliability of operations, including accelerating technological and logistical improvements, and increasing air traffic controller staffing.
The FAA explains that the system that processes radar data for Newark is based in New York, and is called STARS. Telecommunications lines feed this data from New York to the Philadelphia TRACON, where controllers handle Newark arrivals and departures. So the following actions are being taken:
- Adding three new, high bandwidth telecommunications connections between the New York-based STARS and the Philadelphia TRACON, which will provide more speed, reliability, and redundancy
- Replacing copper telecommunications connections with updated fiberoptic technology that also have greater bandwidth and speed
- Deploying a temporary backup system to the Philadelphia TRACON that will provide redundancy during the switch to a more reliable fiberoptic network
- Establishing a STARS hub at the Philadelphia TRACON so that the facility does not depend on a telecommunications feed from the New York STARS hub
Now, it remains to be seen with what timeline all of this happens, and how many more outages we see before this is fixed. So I guess if you’re traveling or from Newark, you don’t just have to worry about a potential delay, but also about the plane you’re on losing contact with controllers.
Bottom line
We’re learning more details about the recent incident that caused some of the mess we’re currently seeing at Newark Airport. Air traffic controllers reportedly lost their radars and radios for around 90 seconds, and that isn’t even the first time we’ve seen something like that in recent times.
In addition to the general staffing shortage, this has also caused some controllers to reportedly take time off, making the situation even worse. The FAA has pledged to upgrade the technology to prevent similar situations in the future, though we’ll see how quickly that all happens.
What do you make of this Newark ATC failure?
Did you say thank you to doge yet?
Seems like the "antiquated systems" weren't having these problems for many years prior to the current regime sending in a bunch of "doge" kids and willy-nilly trampling over the agency, firing and rehiring people, and generally instilling a spirit of chaos and plummeting morale.
And of course, those "kids" don't actually know how anything works- they're entirely depending on fake-it-until-you-make-it and the output of Musk's pet AI project.
Competent people will tell you AI...
Seems like the "antiquated systems" weren't having these problems for many years prior to the current regime sending in a bunch of "doge" kids and willy-nilly trampling over the agency, firing and rehiring people, and generally instilling a spirit of chaos and plummeting morale.
And of course, those "kids" don't actually know how anything works- they're entirely depending on fake-it-until-you-make-it and the output of Musk's pet AI project.
Competent people will tell you AI output needs to be checked by somebody skilled enough to have done the work in the first place. I'd bet quite a bit that this is the result of "fixes" doge has been deploying at EWR since they don't have any other way to test or verify their changes.
Will the FAA be downgrading the USA to Category 2 due to these structural problems in the national aviation management?
Verizon had upgraded most of the cables to fiber optic. Why would they mention copper wires?
Comments yesterday from Sean Duffy (Sec of Transportation) on the plan for Newark. https://youtu.be/OCyFBF1dvaM?list=RDNSOCyFBF1dvaM
No words from Joe the obsolete dinosaur?
Maybe you're part of the AWOL people.
Even FAA admits you're obsolete.
Use this time off to find a new career. You'll be redundant very soon and our skies would be much much safer by then.
There is so much misinformation, nonsense, and political fear mongering in this comment thread it's silly.
Lets focus on the truth:
- Employees across the government were offered the ability to take a compensation package in return for departing at the end of the fiscal year. Some FAA controllers took the offer.
- ATC in the US has long been facing increased staffing shortages. This has nothing to do with the current administration.
...
There is so much misinformation, nonsense, and political fear mongering in this comment thread it's silly.
Lets focus on the truth:
- Employees across the government were offered the ability to take a compensation package in return for departing at the end of the fiscal year. Some FAA controllers took the offer.
- ATC in the US has long been facing increased staffing shortages. This has nothing to do with the current administration.
- The previous administration instituted additional employment mandates above and beyond the ATC's original contracts, which led to significant attrition of long-tenured staff who did not agree with these mandates.
- The performance of the systems in place is not the fault of the current administration's actions in the last 100 days. Any of the last 5 administrations (and likely more) could have funded and implemented improvements to address this issue, but they didn't. A multi-billion dollar deal cut with Verizon with currently almost nothing to show for it would have no different outcome in the incident happening, regardless of what party was in the executive branch.
- The current administrations FY26 Proposed Budget (put together before this incident occurred) includes an extra $360 million for FAA air traffic controller recruitment, salaries, and telecom upgrades—explicitly to surge hiring of new controllers, as well as bonuses and pay raises (up to a 20% lump sum for those deferring retirement, plus $5–10 K for trainees) to address the FAA’s shortfall of roughly 3,500 controllers. (For those of you who only believe in the news from their side of the aisle, this information comes from Reuters and The Washington Post, not "Insert Name Here".)
People need to stop trying to make up their own "realities" and understand that the vast majority of people in the world just want a neutral and fruitful society, and don't care to "drink the koolaid" from any particular side.
"The previous administration instituted additional employment mandates above and beyond the ATC's original contracts, which led to significant attrition of long-tenured staff who did not agree with these mandates."
Can you elaborate some specifics on this? Thank you.
I believe they're referring to vaccine mandates lol. Las Vegas proved why not having those mandates would be dangerous, but anyways...
Did they? I worked emergency medicine in Las Vegas during the pandemic and I don’t recall it being any worse than anywhere else.
The mandates were a fool’s errand. Mandating young and healthy individuals get a vaccine that does nothing to halt transmission of an illness is unethical. Those at risk had the option to get the vaccine themselves and it was very effective at preventing severe illness for that individual, also negating the...
Did they? I worked emergency medicine in Las Vegas during the pandemic and I don’t recall it being any worse than anywhere else.
The mandates were a fool’s errand. Mandating young and healthy individuals get a vaccine that does nothing to halt transmission of an illness is unethical. Those at risk had the option to get the vaccine themselves and it was very effective at preventing severe illness for that individual, also negating the need for someone else to get the vaccination to protect that individual.
All the mandates did was piss people off and remove otherwise healthy and skilled individuals from the workforce. In the end everyone still got Covid.
As someone in IT, and having heard the ATC side of things (they were warned), this is an amazingly stunning display of incompetence at the FAA. For absolutely mission critical infrastructure like this, there is absolutely NO reason that robust communications lines can't be established between the largest city in the country with the fifth largest (or so) city only 90 miles away. Using copper as primary for this, in 2025? You wouldn't have done...
As someone in IT, and having heard the ATC side of things (they were warned), this is an amazingly stunning display of incompetence at the FAA. For absolutely mission critical infrastructure like this, there is absolutely NO reason that robust communications lines can't be established between the largest city in the country with the fifth largest (or so) city only 90 miles away. Using copper as primary for this, in 2025? You wouldn't have done that 20 years ago, let alone today. A fully redundant active/active connection with N+2 would have been the minimum of what I would expect for a critical communication link like this. Full fiber door to door with copper and cellular backups. In the grand scheme of things, this wouldn't even be all too expensive even.
Geez, you can probably find a Walmart with better connectivity than the TRACON here.
Indeed Glidescope. Unfortunately it’ll take months to run new fibre and activate new circuits to improve comms. Outages will continue into the Summer at least.
Maybe doge can come to the rescue and indiscriminately fire more ATCs and airport ops. workers. It's the woke bloat causing all these problems, and nothing that a few thousand layoffs can't fix, amirite? Oh, and DEI. Don't forget it's also DEI's fault. And women. Them too. And drag queens. Drag queens brought the radar outages because of all the sequins on their dresses sending moonbeams to Newark.
It was the last administration whose ridiculous vaccine mandates led to the permanent retiring of many very senior ATC controllers FYI
Senior controllers aren't going to help you when the radar displays and comms go out, since, you know, they can no longer see what's going on or communicate with pilots. Besides that, we had more total ATCs at the end of 2024 than at any point prior. The COVID retirements (which were not driven by vaccine mandates, they were driven by lack of demand for staff and affected ALL employment sectors) had been made up for by mid-2023. This is from the FAA's own website.
But they will help you when multiple ATC go on trauma leave due to obsolete technology and those gaps need to be filled with other bodies.
@Art Vandy
At that point, all that matters is numbers. NATCA has a handy graph published April 2024 showing numbers from 2011-2023: https://www.natca.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/FY23-Staffing-Fact-Sheet-Talking-Points_2.pdf
Note the graph only shows Certified Professional Controllers (CPCs), not new or transferred controllers in any stage of training, though the table below does break down the additional controllers in the pipeline. CPC numbers had been declining since 2011, continued to drop until 2021, when CPC numbers returned to 2016 levels....
@Art Vandy
At that point, all that matters is numbers. NATCA has a handy graph published April 2024 showing numbers from 2011-2023: https://www.natca.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/FY23-Staffing-Fact-Sheet-Talking-Points_2.pdf
Note the graph only shows Certified Professional Controllers (CPCs), not new or transferred controllers in any stage of training, though the table below does break down the additional controllers in the pipeline. CPC numbers had been declining since 2011, continued to drop until 2021, when CPC numbers returned to 2016 levels. There's a dip from retirements in 2020, but that was almost back to normal by 2021 and fully made up by 2023. Your assertion that vaccine mandates are the cause of current staffing problems is bunk.
The real issue is that there's fewer new ATCs in the training pipeline than there were in the 2010s, which unless more aggressive hiring goals are met in the coming years is going to make things worse than they already are. Things were going in the right track under Biden, but the Convict in Chief and his favorite billionaire seem bent on reversing that.
Uh no. If I'm wrong, show me the numbers.
I’m surprised it took so long to get a post on here about these issues. Hope you’re enjoying some vacation time!!
I do recognize you can’t be the CNN of airline news and offer in depth coverage at the same time.
Scott Kirby needs to apologize for his comments about ATCs "walking off the job" now that this news is out. Really ugly of him to say that now that we know they were taking trauma leave because of how stressful this situation was (which they were able to successfully navigate without any incidents)
Agreed. Retired ATC. I was offended by Kirby's remarks. While I never took Trauma Leave, I was glad I had the option. There were a couple times I probably should have taken it. Equipment outages can take the control out of Air Traffic Control, and that's the worst feeling to deal with when it's this extreme.
What I’ve heard, multiple times from reliable sources, is that a group of controllers, already unhappy about the N90 move to PHL, immediately went out on the maximum-allowed period of 45 days of “trauma leave” after a brief equipment outage when back up procedures were in effect.
I’ve heard similar stories, not specifically related to this, of how the 45 days of trauma leave can be gamed and claimed without much more reason than...
What I’ve heard, multiple times from reliable sources, is that a group of controllers, already unhappy about the N90 move to PHL, immediately went out on the maximum-allowed period of 45 days of “trauma leave” after a brief equipment outage when back up procedures were in effect.
I’ve heard similar stories, not specifically related to this, of how the 45 days of trauma leave can be gamed and claimed without much more reason than a controller saying “I’m traumatized”.
The equipment definitely needs to be updated and modernized, but it doesn’t sound like Kirby was that far off when he said a group of controllers “walked off”.
So is Newark safe to fly to Ben? Purely safety or should we cancel flights that go into Newark. What would you do?
Yet someone wanted to cut the budget for existing operations as well as defund infrastructure maintenance.
Wonder if this means don't fly into EWR...
https://nypost.com/2025/05/04/us-news/newark-airport-air-traffic-controller-offers-damning-assessment/
It seems that as this gets more unpacked that that knee jerk moving of Newark radar services to Philadelphia was half-baked at best and is now causing significantly more technical problems (in addition to the human resource problems and labor unrest previously reported extensively when the move happened) than the staffing problems it was purported to help mitigate. Now looking like everyone is dug in and won't admit failure and go back to New York...
It seems that as this gets more unpacked that that knee jerk moving of Newark radar services to Philadelphia was half-baked at best and is now causing significantly more technical problems (in addition to the human resource problems and labor unrest previously reported extensively when the move happened) than the staffing problems it was purported to help mitigate. Now looking like everyone is dug in and won't admit failure and go back to New York controlling radar handling of Newark.
When PHL posts openings, they get more applicants than they have positions available. When in New York, they didn’t. There was a reputation that, even with incentives, it was not worth transferring there.
When people are out of training and the equipment is upgraded, it will be better. There was no light at the end of the tunnel when it was in New York.
Don't worry I'm sure ATC is safe and effective just like the last administration promised.
Good thing our intercity transportation infrastructure has alternate and redundant modes of transportation... oh wait
That’s extremely unsafe and asking for a crash. Time to shut it down until the upgrades are made. To big of a risk.
This doesn’t make sense in today’s economic and political environment. These days we do it this way! :
1. Ok, let’s guess maybe a 10M dollar value per persons life. Plus or minus of course.
2. And let’s say 200 people on average in a plane.
3. So, that’s 10M X 200 = 2 billion in economic loss from a crash for doing nothing…. Oh don’t forget to add in the plane...
This doesn’t make sense in today’s economic and political environment. These days we do it this way! :
1. Ok, let’s guess maybe a 10M dollar value per persons life. Plus or minus of course.
2. And let’s say 200 people on average in a plane.
3. So, that’s 10M X 200 = 2 billion in economic loss from a crash for doing nothing…. Oh don’t forget to add in the plane value!!… so maybe 2.1 Billion cost for not doing anything now.
4. Then of course we could close down the airport and ATC now will cost the area… oh let’s see. How about 100 billion? Might be a little low but it will do for this game show.
5. And don’t forget to add in the fact that we live on world driven by economic value and 100 billion is worth more than 2.1 billion, so…. Ta da! Here we have our answer.
Alex, today’s government and economic system will pick 100 billion now for 2.1 billion and a crash later please.