USA. Newark-Liberty airport has lost contact with all aircraft, trauma of controllers

Newark-Liberty Airport, one of the most important airports serving New York, temporarily lost connectivity with all aircraft. The failure took place last week and did not lead to any accident, but it caused trauma among air traffic controllers. Some of them after the incident had to go on health leave, and the airport canceled some flights.

Passengers traveling to or from the Newark-Liberty International Airport near New York must take into account difficulties. For over a week, the port has been struggling with staff shortages. These are partly caused by a recent strike and leaving the work of some controllers. The situation, however, deteriorated the failure that occurred last week, and its details are now described by world media.

No communication with planes on Newark-Liberty

Last Monday, the communication system, which the airport uses, broke up. For safety reasons, key systems are always duplicated in aviation, but the spare system has not started. As a result, air traffic controllers for several dozen seconds could not communicate with any aircraft they were responsible for. They also did not see the position of machines on radars.

In accordance with the account of the secretary of transport USA Sean Duffy, the contact was lost for about 30 seconds. – The main communication line stopped working and the spare line did not start – he said. Other sources talk about 60 or 90 seconds of no communication.

As Duffy emphasized, the loss of contact was not synonymous with the occurrence of a serious threat to aircraft. Other systems and devices that have managed to protect machines from dangerous incidents also supervise their safety. However, the stress caused by a double failure and lack of contact with aircraft meant that some controllers had to go on health leave after this event.

This additionally deepened the airport staffing problems. As NBC News reports, all this led to delay and cancellation of hundreds of flights. Problems occurred throughout the weekend, and Monday did not bring any improvement – the station says. It cites an example of United Airlines, which daily cancel 35 flights from Newark-Liberty airport.

ABC News informs about the policy introduced by Line, according to which travelers from Newark can change their travel plan without additional fees. The station notes that on Monday the airport came first in the world in terms of the number of delays and flights.