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.
A couple of days ago, we learned more about how air traffic controllers responsible for the airspace around the airport have suffered multiple 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.
Well, there’s now yet another update, as controllers responsible for the airport experienced another radar and radio failure this morning. This is just so beyond embarrassing and absurd…
In this post:
Newark ATC loses contact with pilots several times
Shortly before 4AM on Friday, May 9, 2025 (today), there was a telecommunications outage that impacted radio and radar at Philadelphia TRACON Area C, which guides aircraft in and out of Newark Airport. The outage lasted for around 90 seconds. This is only the latest in a string of incidents at the airport, and at least this one happened early in the morning, when traffic was a bit more limited.
A few days ago, we learned about a similar incident that happened on Monday, April 28, 2025. The same center (Philadelphia TRACON Area C) “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 also lasted for around 90 seconds, but it took a lot longer than that to recover.
If you’re curious what these outages are like, 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 this has happened several times now. According to air traffic controllers, this has happened eight or nine times in recent months, and that was before today’s incident.
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
Yesterday, we saw President Trump and Transportation Secretary Duffy outline plans to modernize our air traffic control system, and make it “the envy of the world.” They claim that all of these updates will happen by 2028, but so far all we have is promises, so let’s see how that actually goes.
With all these outages, is flying to Newark safe?
It sounds like we’ve now had about 10 incidents in recent weeks where air traffic controllers responsible for Newark have lost radar and radio contact with pilots. That is obviously very concerning. As passengers, should we be worried about flying there? Here’s my take…
I think everyone can agree that these outages cut into the safety margins that make our skies so safe. The concept of controllers fully losing contact with pilots for periods of 90 seconds is not ideal, especially if it’s during busy periods. I imagine that this also adds to the general stress controllers deal with, and contributes to further delays.
Now, is it “unsafe” to fly to Newark? Airplanes have all kinds of redundant systems in place, like TCAS, which are supposed to help avoid collisions (though doesn’t always prevent disaster, especially at low altitudes, as we learned at DCA in January).
If you ask me, flying to Newark is still safer than your drive from the airport to whatever your final destination is. That being said, it’s certainly alarming to see that this seems to be an ongoing issue, with no immediate solution.
Bottom line
Newark Airport is a bit of a mess right now, for a variety of reasons. Not the least of the issues is that air traffic controllers for the airspace are having frequent outages, whereby they’re losing both radar and radio contact with pilots for periods of around 90 seconds.
The issues at Newark perfectly encapsulate the government’s neglect of our air traffic control system for far too long. We’re not talking about one, or two, or even three, administrations, but rather over decades. It’s quite sad that this is how bad things have become. If there’s any silver lining, I hope that the situation has finally gotten so bad that the government has no choice but to take action.
What do you make of this Newark ATC failure?
Scott Kirby was wanting the FAA to slot control EWR at 48 departures/hour.
The FAA is proposing:
Outside ofthe construction period, through the end of Summer 2025 scheduling season ending October 25, 2025, FAA proposes a
targeted scheduling rate of 34 arrivals per hour, with a corresponding departure rate of 34 operations, resulting in no more than 68 total operations per hour. FAA believes that this proposal would reduce overscheduling, flight delays, and...
Scott Kirby was wanting the FAA to slot control EWR at 48 departures/hour.
The FAA is proposing:
Outside ofthe construction period, through the end of Summer 2025 scheduling season ending October 25, 2025, FAA proposes a
targeted scheduling rate of 34 arrivals per hour, with a corresponding departure rate of 34 operations, resulting in no more than 68 total operations per hour. FAA believes that this proposal would reduce overscheduling, flight delays, and cancellations to an acceptable level at EWR and ensure the efficient use of the national airspace system (NAS). Proposed targeted
scheduling limits for this period will take place between 6:00 a.m. and 10:59 p.m.
This represents about a 1/3 reduction over what UA wants and presumably well below what UA is currently scheduling.
All airlines will be asked to offer their proposed reductions but clearly UA is going to be most impacted.
EWR has never been capable of handling the level of operations that UA has operated there ever since the CO merger - and probably long before that.
The competitive balance in NYC is very much uncertain.
The FAA is seriously considering significant reductions to the capacity of Newark to be achieved by voluntary means, according to multiple sources
Most ATC systems in Europe were upgraded years ago including electronic flight strips. London City Airport has remote digital atc, the first in the world. Whilst not perfect it’s way ahead. CDG and AMS upgraded systems in 2024.
Looking at that pic of the FAA centre it looks like something from the 1970s versus NATS at Swanwick in the U.K.
Eeeeeewwww! Tim is back. :(
Some people are a bit slow on the uptake …. :-)
Good job pothole Pete. DEI. Look at this mess the men have to fix that THEY/THEM neglected.
LOL!
Nothing like the tears of RWNJs.
With the inept, corrupt clowns running this administration, the cure for this is going to be far worse than the disease.
Mark my words, you heard it here first: We are all going to be looking back with nostalgia at the Good Old Days of our antiquated Air Traffic Control system, 1940s technology and all. Elon's trolls are coming for this. So much grift to scoop up.
I already prefer LGA and JFK to EWR as, why would I want to cross into New Jersey? This just cements my feeling of avoiding Newark.
Gonna genuinely avoid EWR for a while!
me before any of this telecom outage stuff happened
Ben, will you be adding any functionality to allow readers to block certain commenters from their feeds? Just asking out of curiosity, not for any special reason or anything.
@BEN, How can I see or get notified if someone responds to my comment or the thread I commented on? I feel like since we got the new site ( I know it's been a while) that I have not been getting any notifications for follow up comments. Thanks
The calls by Kirby for re-slotting EWR need to be put aside and focus on getting stable and workable radar and radio communications.
The FAA needs to move heaven and earth to figure out why there continue to be technology failures and get them fixed yesterday. You shouldn't need congressional approval or a new budget to do routine maintenance.
The NE, once again, has less than desirable weather today on top of having a...
The calls by Kirby for re-slotting EWR need to be put aside and focus on getting stable and workable radar and radio communications.
The FAA needs to move heaven and earth to figure out why there continue to be technology failures and get them fixed yesterday. You shouldn't need congressional approval or a new budget to do routine maintenance.
The NE, once again, has less than desirable weather today on top of having a single runway out of service. Both are within the realm of what can be expected, with runway construction happening much less often.
Faulty technology - even if it is 50 years old - has to be kept workable and the FAA clearly can do that at other airports.
and, btw, when radar was out last week, commercial flights at EWR that were in line for takeoff were allowed w/ their company's approval to leave EWR under VFR flight rules and pick up ATC radar services and following 15 to 20 minutes into the flight.
Tim, being a man who will probably know …. how much of the disruption to air traffic in the U.S. is down to tired equipment, infrastructure and controllers, etc, as opposed to cyber attacks?
90 or even 30 seconds isn't a huge disruption at many airports but at the three dozen that are in class B airspace, any disruption is a big deal.
We still don't hear of ATC serving any other airports repeatedly losing radar or radio and THAT is the issue - not reduced capacity due to runway construction or weather and certainly not any desire to see EWR slot controlled again.
Yes, EWR is...
90 or even 30 seconds isn't a huge disruption at many airports but at the three dozen that are in class B airspace, any disruption is a big deal.
We still don't hear of ATC serving any other airports repeatedly losing radar or radio and THAT is the issue - not reduced capacity due to runway construction or weather and certainly not any desire to see EWR slot controlled again.
Yes, EWR is safe because there are so many redundancies in the system - as is true with all of aviation - but UA would do well to drop the narrative about reslotting EWR and focus on getting viable ATC services at EWR
Well that’s just false, nobody was taking off VFR in EWR class Bravo airspace lol. All airline SOP do not allow that. Especially during a radar outage.
there are ATC tapes with it on it. You might want to find those YouTube videos
Controllers said that they had never done it but it was permitted with dispatcher approval- 10 miles in trail spacing.
"The FAA acknowledges that airport issues stem from both airport runway construction, as well as staffing and technology issues"
I understand the focus on the second reason for the outages but it kind of sounds like someone on the construction crew didn't call 811?
I chuckled at myself thinking about a ditch witch cutting through a bunch of SM and MM fiber and some coax cables somewhere. But I think the truth is they're down a runway which is causing general congestion so the skies are slightly more crowded than usual. That's based off recent memory, tho.
Ohhhh that would make more sense hah
@DCAWABN,
I spent my carrier in IT including as CTO and CIO of a couple of national companies. We had a term BIF (backhoe induced failure). Telecom lines get cut more often than you like expect
It's kind of funny the current admin has to deal with this. 180 republicans voted to defund the FAA in 2019. I guess that isn't going to work out for them.