A 90-second radar and communications blackout at the air traffic control center overseeing Newark Liberty International Airport has sent shockwaves through the nation’s air travel system, and the fallout is still being felt.

The April 28 failure, caused by nothing more than a burnt piece of copper wire, left air traffic controllers effectively blind and deaf, unable to see or communicate with aircraft under their supervision. According to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), the incident was so traumatic that several controllers at the Philadelphia-based TRACON facility responsible for Newark were forced to take trauma leave under the Federal Employees Compensation Act.

“For a full minute and a half, they had no radar, no communication — no way to guide planes in one of the busiest air corridors in the country,” a source familiar with the incident told the New York Post. “It was chaos.”

The system failure and its psychological toll on FAA workers have triggered a cascade of delays and cancellations at Newark — the second-busiest airport in the New York area. Since Friday, the airport has seen more than 400 canceled flights and nearly 2,000 delays. United Airlines, which operates roughly 75% of flights at Newark, has slashed 35 daily roundtrips, blaming chronic understaffing and the failure that pushed 20% of the area’s air traffic controllers to “walk off the job.”

NATCA disputed that claim, saying controllers took federally protected trauma leave but did not stage a walkout.

At a press conference Monday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded an Inspector General investigation into what he called a “travel nightmare” at an airport that handled nearly 50 million passengers last year.

“The technology is old and must be updated,” Schumer said. “One of the things that happened at Newark is a copper wire burnt. Why are we using copper wire in 2025? Have they heard of fiber?”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy echoed the criticism, acknowledging that “we use floppy disks. We use copper wires. The system we’re using is not effective to control the traffic we have in the airspace today.”

United CEO Scott Kirby, in a letter to customers, described the Philadelphia TRACON as “chronically understaffed for years,” and pointed to the outdated infrastructure and understaffing as the core causes of the cascading delays.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)