The Transportation Department and FAA have deployed an emergency task force and implemented series of fixes to address the issues at Newark airport.
Critical equipment failures at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey have caused air traffic controllers to lose contact with planes in three separate incidents over the past several weeks, causing hundreds of flight delays and cancellations and leaving passengers on edge.
Issues leading to the communication blackouts include prolonged staffing shortages, aging technology and infrastructure, and the closure of one of Newark’s busiest runways.
Top government officials have responded quickly.
At a Cabinet meeting just days after the first outage, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stressed the urgency of building “a brand new system.”
If the nation’s aging air traffic control infrastructure—including technology that “looks like it’s out of a 1980s movie”—is not addressed, Duffy warned, “people will lose their lives.”
In an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on May 11, Duffy said key copper data lines between two communication hubs handling Newark’s airspace were being replaced with fiber optics, and a glitch in air traffic control’s computer software was being repaired.
Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has slowed traffic in and out of the airport and deployed an emergency task force, Duffy announced May 12.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Senate’s top Democrat, is calling for an investigation into the cause of Newark’s communications blackouts.
“Other airports across the nation could see similar problems like in Newark if the FAA does not take this investigation seriously,” Schumer said on the Senate floor on May 5.
Duffy said at a May 12 press conference that he’d call for a probe into a decision made by the Transportation Department last year to move the control team that handles Newark’s airspace from a facility in New York to one in Philadelphia, saying the move was partially to blame for the incidents.
Here’s everything you need to know about the problems in Newark’s airspace: what happened, why it happened, what the government is doing to fix it, and whether or not it’s still safe to fly at one of the nation’s busiest airports.
By Jacob Burg
