Updated at 5 PM ET
Delays and cancellations continue to pile up at Newark International Airport as disturbing questions are being asked about an aging air traffic management system and burned out air traffic controllers.
As of 5:00 pm ET on 06MAY, Flight Aware was reporting 139 cancellations and 289 delayed flights at EWR. The website said there were 141 cancelled flights in and out of EWR on 04MAY, and another 160 on 05MAY.
Multiple published reports out of the US paint an enormously disturbing picture of operations at EWR, including terrifying gaps in communication between air traffic controllers and pilots flying hundreds of passengers in and out of one of the busiest airports in North America.
CNN said a United flight from MSY to EWR suffered a 30-second communications blackout with EWR controllers last week.
“Those 30 seconds of silence when communication went down ultimately cascaded into a weeklong meltdown at Newark, one of the nation’s largest airports. It resulted in delays and cancellations for thousands of customers, controllers taking leave for trauma, and renewed scrutiny on an outdated air traffic control system.”
Concerns about air traffic control at Reagan National took the spotlight earlier this year after an Army helicopter crashed into a passenger airliner over the Potomac River, resulting in 67 deaths.
The CBC at the time reported that one air traffic controller was working two positions at DCA when the crash took place.
The chaos at EWR in the past few days “also highlighted the challenges of an understaffed system, the latest incident in an already turbulent year for aviation that included a deadly collision between a passenger jet and a US Army helicopter,” CNN said. It also said US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told Fox News on 05MAY that controllers had lost the primary communication, and the backup line did not immediately take over.
“We have really old infrastructure in America,” Duffy told Fox News host Laura Ingraham. “It hasn’t been updated in the last 30-40 years.”
The New York Post said a fried piece of copper wire sparked a temporary radar and communications blackout for air traffic controllers overseeing the second-busiest airport in the New York metro area on 28APR, leaving those in the tower “unable to see, hear, or talk to” planes in the sky.
Duffy noted that while both communication lines are now working, “less departures” will be going out of Newark “until we feel comfortable and safe that the system isn’t going to go down again.”
That could impact flights from Canadian airlines, including Air Canada and Porter Airlines. Porter’s website has an advisory out for 06MAY, noting that flights could be affected by air traffic management.
The website NJ.Com reports the delays that have plagued EWR for the past week “likely won’t ease anytime soon.”
“The problems are three fold — equipment issues due to aging technology, fewer air traffic controllers and the ongoing closure of one of the busy airport’s three runways,” NJ.Com said.
