(AFP) – US authorities said the overstretched airport of Newark, one of three serving the New York metropolitan area, suffered a new 90-second outage early on Friday. Delays and flight cancellations had already followed an April 28 incident at Newark Liberty International Airport, in which traffic controllers stationed in nearby Philadelphia were unable to communicate with planes.
In the latest incident, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), there “was a telecommunications outage that impacted communications and radar display” at the same Philadelphia traffic control station that guides aircraft in and out of Newark’s airspace. The outage occurred around 3:55 am (07:55 GMT) on Friday and “lasted approximately 90 seconds,” a short statement said. Following the first incident, the FAA said Wednesday it was slowing arrivals and departures at Newark, which is one of the United States’ busiest airports. In Wednesday’s statement, the FAA said it was adding new telecommunications capacity, replacing copper connections with updated materials and deploying backup equipment. It also cited runway construction as a cause for the slowdown.
The troubles at Newark follow a January 29 mid-air collision near Washington’s Reagan National Airport involving a passenger jet and a military helicopter, the first major US commercial crash since 2009. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described Friday’s incident as a “glitch” “caused by the same telecoms and software issues that were raised last week,” adding that FAA and Department of Transportation staff were installing new telecommunications connections. “The goal is to have the totality of this work done by the end of the summer,” she said.
Leavitt praised Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who on Thursday unveiled a sweeping plan to modernize the nation’s air traffic control system. “These are much needed changes. This is a very bold plan by the Department of Transportation,” Leavitt said. “I think it’s unfortunate that the previous administration sat on their hands and did nothing,” Leavitt said, referring to the Biden administration.
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader in the legislative chamber, called the problem at Newark an “air travel safety emergency that requires immediate and decisive action, not a promise of a big, beautiful unfunded overhaul that will take years to begin to implement,” according to a statement. “The backup system that is not working must be fixed. Now,” said Schumer. Schumer has questioned the impact of FAA job cuts on Newark’s operations, made during Elon Musk’s tenure as the unofficial head of the Department of Government Efficiency. In a statement earlier this week, Schumer said that the incidents are evidence the Trump administration is not “up to the task of keeping people safe.”
© 2024 AFP
