A failed backup telecommunications line led to a 90-second radar and radio outage last month that left air traffic controllers unable to see jetliners heading into Newark airport.
After the primary connection that carries radar data into the Philadelphia facility where controllers guide planes into the busy hub failed, a second line to provide redundancy “did not kick in like it was designed to do,” Franklin McIntosh, deputy chief operating officer for the
That triggered the 90-second radar outage at the facility on April 28, he said. ...