The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating a brief radio system outage at the Philadelphia air traffic control center responsible for handling flights at Newark Liberty International Airport.
The FAA said the control center lost radio frequencies for two seconds at around 11:35 a.m. local time Monday. Despite the outage, all aircraft “remained safely separated,” the FAA said in a statement to CBS News.
The brief outage is the fourth such incident to take place at Newark Airport since April 28 amid persistent equipment and staffing issues. After the April incident, a second outage on May 9 interrupted communications for 90 seconds, resulting in more flight disruptions. A third outage on May 11 also halted flights, while staffing shortages linked to the April incident led to widespread delays.
The Philadelphia air traffic control facility that handles flights at Newark is also experiencing a staffing shortage.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said earlier this month that upgrades to the nation’s air traffic control system are underway. They include updating the system with new software and equipment in a revamp that will cost “tens of billions of dollars,” according to Duffy.
The existing system relies on decades-old technology, and the FAA has resorted to buying replacement parts on eBay or making them with 3D printers because new components are unavailable, Duffy told members of a Senate Appropriations subcommittee in April.
The problems have drawn attention to the severe shortage of air traffic controllers in the U.S. More than 90% of the nation’s airport towers are inadequately staffed and fall short of standards set by a working group that included the Federal Aviation Administration and the controllers’ union, according to a January analysis by CBS News of FAA data.
