For the second times in two weeks, radar screens went dark for air traffic controllers working for Newark Airport. 온라인카지노사이트 New York’s Sarah Wallace reports.
Troubles at were far from over Friday.
The air traffic controllers directing planes into the Newark, New Jersey, airport lost their radar Friday morning for the second time in two weeks. This was on top of a ground stop put in place for an hour until 11:15 a.m.
Watch 온라인카지노사이트 5 free wherever you are
The Federal Aviation Administration said the radar at the facility in Philadelphia that directs planes in and out of Newark airport went black for 90 seconds at 3:55 a.m. Friday. That’s similar to what happened on April 28.
That first radar outage led to hundreds of flights being canceled or delayed at the Newark airport in the past two weeks after the FAA slowed down traffic at the airport to ensure safety. Five controllers also went on trauma leave after that outage, worsening the It’s not clear if any additional controllers will go on leave now.
Get top local stories delivered to you every morning with 온라인카지노사이트 DFW's News Headlines newsletter.
Are there delays at Newark on Friday?
As the Friday evening rush at the airport gets underway, an earlier ground stop was canceled, but flights into Newark are being delayed an average of more than four hours, . The FAA said the delays are resulting from a combination of weather and low ceilings, mixed with runway construction impacts and FAA staffing issues.
On Friday alone, there were 403 delays at the airport and 140 cancellations as of 4:45 p.m., .
U.S. & World
Officials said there have been more than 1,700 cancellations and delays at the airport this week.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka called the latest incident "horrible" and said something urgent needed to be done.
"It's horrible, and speaks to some of the incidents we've been seeing nationally in the air, and this has to be an urgent matter. We don't have time to go back and forth with political wrangling about who's right and who's wrong," Baraka said. "We need to put some air traffic controllers in place now, either fix those radar systems now, and we need to slow the planes down. We need to put space between the planes that are coming in and out of those airports."
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a briefing Friday morning that the “glitch this morning at Newark” was caused by the same issues as last week, but it didn't disrupt flights.
“Everything went back online after the brief outage, and there was no operational impact,” Leavitt said.
U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer blamed the problems that have plagued Newark on the lack of proper air traffic controller staffing and modern technology. He said at a news conference Friday that there are currently about 20 controllers working, and that number should be in the 60s. And many of the lines connecting controllers to the radar are outdated copper wires. He said the April 28 outage was caused by one of those copper wires getting fried.
“Our region is a key economic artery for our country. Yet this region... one of the busiest air spaces in the world, as I mentioned, is running off a tower that’s full of copper wire dating back to the 1980s with outdated and inefficient technology. And the region is short — and this is a big deal. The region is short about 40 air traffic controllers,” Gottheimer said. He said the tower was built back in “the Brady Bunch era” in 1973.
The FAA said earlier this week that it is installing new fiber optic data lines to carry the radar signal between its facilities in Philadelphia and New York. Officials said some of the lines connecting those two facilities are outdated copper wire that will be replaced. But it's not clear how quickly those repairs can be completed.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced a Thursday to replace the nation’s aging air traffic control system to prevent problems like this from happening and give controllers modern technology. That plan includes installing 4,600 new high-speed connections and replacing 618 radars across the country.
Officials developed the plan to upgrade the system after a in January between a passenger jet and an Army helicopter killed 67 people in the skies over Washington, D.C. this year also put pressure on officials to act.
But the shortcomings of the air traffic control system have been known for decades. The National Transportation Safety Board has not determined that a problem with the air traffic control system caused that crash near Reagan National Airport.
FAA announces planned fixes for Newark Airport
The FAA on Wednesday released a statement laying out the next steps to fix some of the equipment and staffing issues that have plagued EWR in recent days.
"The FAA is taking immediate steps to improve the reliability of operations at Newark Liberty International Airport. This includes accelerating technological and logistical improvements and increasing air traffic controller staffing," the FAA said.
The FAA said the controllers who handle Newark's airspace are based in Philadelphia but the system that processes radar data is based in New York, with telecom lines feeding the data to the controllers in Philly.
To help fix some of the communication issues, the FAA said it is added new communications between the two centers and replacing connections with updated fiberoptic technology for greater speed.
Controller staffing is also a priority, Duffy has said, and the FAA said it has 21 controllers and supervisors in training specifically for the Newark airspace operations center with a pipeline of classes filled through July 2026.
