US confirms another outage at Newark airport

WASHINGTON: 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 on 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.

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.